Índice Geral das Seções Índice da Seção Atual Índice da Obra Anterior: XXVI – Um Tempo de Controvérsia Seguinte: XXVIII – A Sociedade Hermética
(p. 172)
CHAPTER XXVII
MEDITATIONS ON THE MYSTERIES
IN the intervals passed at home this winter and spring Mary wrote [in her
diary] a number of meditations of very profound character, on the mysteries,
Egyptian, Hebrew, Greek, and others, at a length which admits only of a few
brief examples here. They form a valuable confirmation of the declaration of
February 24 [1884]. – The Holy of Holies in the
Tabernacle corresponds to the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid, and the
Mercy-Seat to the Coffer. (1) Both the Holy of Holies and the
King’s Chamber represent, then, the Final Dispensation and the reign of Christ;
in other words, the kingdom of God. The Mercy-Seat and the Coffer represent the
Christ-Nature, the measure of the stature of the
fullness of Christ; and the word Mercy denotes that the basis and the most
characteristic feature of that nature is Mercy to all creatures.
It is the Fourth Generation that shall enter into the King’s Chamber. Then shall be the making-known – the Gospel of Interpretation.
“Behold, I will make all things new.” The Fourth Generation is the “King’s
Daughter, all glorious within, whose raiment is of wrought gold.” Mary Magdalen, who came early to the Sepulchre, while it was yet
dark, and Esther, who stood in the Ante-Chamber waiting for the king, typify the
time immediately preceding the
(p. 173)
golden sceptre which he held out to her.
They were of the Ante-Chamber; they entered not into the kingdom; and they are
types of the Woman who shall usher the world into the
Ante-Chamber of the Pyramid; who shall come while it is yet dark and ere the sun
be risen upon the earth.
The outer open court of the Tabernacle, containing the brazen Altar and Laver,
corresponds to the descending passage of the Pyramid, and extends from Noah, the
Covenant of the Flood, to Moses. The Covered House corresponds to the
commencement of the Ascending Passage; it contains the seven-branched
Candle-stick and the Table of Shew-Bread; this is the Second Generation. The
Third Generation is the Christian. It extends from Jesus to the first dark and
low passage symbolising Materialism. It is typified by the grand gallery which
corresponds to the Sanctuary of the Tabernacle containing the Golden Altar.
According to this, the Mosaic and Christian Dispensations make One Covered
House, divided into two parts: the first the Holy Place, the second the
Sanctuary. Then comes the Veil, corresponding to the
Ante-Chamber, which Veil is fourfold, Blue, Purple, Scarlet, and White,
corresponding to the entry to the Dark Passage Nº. 1; then to
the entry to the Ante-Chamber; then to the entry to the Dark Passage Nº.
2; then to the entry to the King’s Chamber. The Veil and the Holy of Holies
compose the Tent, and together make up the Neck and Head, the Fourth Generation
ushered in by Esther and Mary Magdalen.
Shrovetide, February 26, 1884. – The Kabalistic
and Hermetic secret regarding the Moon is one which throws a flood of light upon
the Gnostic theory connected with Materialisation, and the hidden meaning of
certain Hebrew and other Myths.
In the Kabala we find the tenth Sephirah dejected from
the triple enumeration which connects all the other nine one with another; and
we learn that this separation and isolation is on account of the peculiar
function and character assigned to the tenth Sephirah.
This Sephirah – Malkuth
by name – is in the Kabala denominated as the Wife of the Microprosopus, the Moon, the Spouse, the Church, the Virgin,
the
(p. 174)
part is called Rachel, the Wife of Jacob.” The
Greeks said of the Moon, that in her beneficent aspect she was Artemis or
Phoebe, and in her malignant aspect, Hecate.
In the Greek mysteries of
All these parables become plain the moment we understand that
Malkuth, or Luna, represents Karma. Of course, Karma
has two faces, according to the character of the soul or postulant.
As the Earth in the process of individuation throws off its satellite or Moon,
so Man in process of individuation throws off his Karma or Fate, and fixes it as
his constant attendant and control, whether for good or for evil. Thus his Karma
or Genius, personified, becomes his Initiator, and follows and precedes him
through all changes. The good face, or face of Artemis, reflects to him the
Divine Light of her brother, Phoibos; the dark or evil
face is to him a portent of malignant influence; it is the face of Hecate the Avenger.
And so also says the Hebrew parable. Jacob is the human soul, whom his mother, Rebekah – the same as Demeter, Intelligence – sends into a
far country, remote from his father’s house – the lower world into which the
Soul descends – and there he falls in love with Rachel, the Moon in her good
aspect, and longs for this beautiful influence. But no sooner does he think to
embrace her than he rinds himself face to face with Leah, the evil Karma. And it
is told him that he must first expiate his time with her before he can be
rewarded with the blessing of Rachel. Thus the wife of the Soul has a twofold
aspect, and throughout the story the alternation of his relations to both
continues. Joseph, the Prince and Genius of the Spiritual
It is thus not difficult to see how a materialising tendency in occult mysteries
would readily convert Malkuth into an evil influence.
The more spiritual science is, the more it tends to dwell on the Good and on the
Beautiful; and the more material science is, the more it lowers itself to
association with evil and hideous influences. Hence wicked and irreligious men
are often superstitious, and dread spectral monitions,
fluidic apparitions, and ghostly terrors, simply because the Moon smites them by
night. And their evil life brings upon their souls the avenging arm of Hecate Triformis, she who as a
horse is swift, as a dog is sure, and as a lion implacable. These souls fear the
Lunar power, and in their terrors of hellish influences may be discerned
their secret and interior man’s foreknowledge of the evil Karma which they are
building up against themselves in other lives to come.
Until the Soul falls into matter, she cannot, of course, have any
(p. 175)
Karma. Karma is the appanage and result of
Time and of Manifestation. The Blessed are free of Fate; therefore Malkuth, the tenth Sephirah, is
otherwise called Actuality. For that is Actual which is done
in Time and is subject to the three tenses. The world of Malkuth is the world of Form, or of Effects; the other
Sephiroth inhere in the Formless worlds of pure Causes. Observe that Demeter,
searching for her lost Daughter, seeks in vain for nine days and nights. She
visits the nine Abodes of Heaven, and inquires of all the Gods in turn. The
Soul, precipitated into Hades – Matter – has entered the world of Effects, and
is no longer to be found in the world of pure Causes. She has come under the
domain of Fate, of Actuality, of Leah; and it is therefore Hecate alone who is able to reveal her whereabouts to
Demeter. Then, by the aid of Hermes, or, as Orpheus says, of Bacchus, Demeter
recovers the lost one. Of course, Hermes and Bacchus, in this connection,
represent the same idea – the Spirit, the Divine Particle, by which the Soul is
finally redeemed from Matter; that is, the Christ, descending into the very jaws
of Hades to rescue the “Souls in Prison” (St. Peter).
Hence the idea of certain occultists, who are not divine Seers, that evil Souls
and decaying Egos actually go to the Moon; that is, to the
physical Satellite. This notion is, of course, a corrupt and materialised form
of the kabalistic doctrine just stated. Malkuth is not the physical Moon, but the archetypal idea of
the Moon; and the relation of this Archetype to the Soul is the relation of
cognates, whereas the relation of the physical Satellite to the Soul is an
incongruous one, for it involves a relation of two things which are not
cognates. The kabalistic doctrine,
of course, compares like with like, and preserves the affinity of Similars. The teaching of the mere occultist is
unscientific, and creates confusion of substance. “The woman shall not lie with
the beast,” says the sacred book; that is, the spiritual can hold no legitimate
and intimate relation to the physical. It is for this reason that the idea of
the redemption of the Soul by means of physical blood-shedding is an impossible
and a blasphemous idea, and that a physical incarnation of God is absurd in
esoteric science. Such physiological processes can have no relation to the Soul;
they represent the physical, and cannot be brought into effect as spiritual
realities. The Soul is unaffected by them; they belong to Time, not to Being.
All
kabalistic ideas are Primaries; they stand for
Actualities, not of Time but of Mind; they are substantial ideas, and not their reflects translated into the
objectiva
of Matter. Whoso reads the Secondary and the Reflect where the Primary and the
Original is intended, may indeed be an occultist, but he is not a mystic, – an
epopt.
Malkuth to the servant of God is Rachel, the beautiful, the
loving, the gracious. The pure soul may be safe in her
keeping, for the Moon is favourable unto those who love God. Precious things
come forth from the Moon. Artemis is the Patroness of the chaste and virginal, –
that is, of the soul undefiled with the traffic of the flesh. In this kindly
aspect Malkuth is
(p. 176)
our souls lights up their dark recesses and
revivifies our interior reminiscences. And this light of the kindly
The Triads of the Kabala are three. The first is Kether, Chokmah, and Binah – Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit (feminine). The second is Gedulah,
Geburah, and Tiphareth. The
third is Netzach, Hod, and Jesod. Now if the original Duality of the Kabala, Ain-Suph, the Father-Mother, be taken as the root of the Triads,
we should have a primary Trinity of which the third term [Kether] would be the first of the second triad. The
Christian doctrine has adopted the order just recapitulated. But there is a
higher and more purely Kabalistic and Hermetic view,
which is as follows: – The first Triad would thus be [Ain-Suph, Kether] Father, Mother, Son.
In the second [Triad], the son [Kether] becomes the
Father, and we have the order Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In this second
Trinity, the last term [Binah], that is, the Spirit,
is feminine, and this was the case with the Gnostics. The Hebrews always read
from right to left, consequently the Kabala places Ain on the right side. The
right-hand column, Jachin, is the masculine column –
Wisdom, Love, Energy; the left-hand column, Boaz, is the feminine column –
Understanding, Justice, Strength. The synthetic
Sephiroth are Thought, Beauty, Motion (or Time), and Fate – the root of the Tree
of Life. Note that thus [i.e. with Ain-Suph]
we have twelve numbers in place of ten. And this represents the higher and
complete Kabalistic reckoning.
Kether (Zeus), who in the first Trinity is the Son, is
called in the Kabala the I AM; The Personality. He is Adon, the Lord. But the manifestation which takes place by
Him is completed only in the evolution of Chokmah and
Binah, Son and Spirit, because, says the Kabala,
Volition, which is a product of personal self-consciousness, needed for its
evolution a dual concurrence. Chokmah represents the
Effulgence, potential in Adonai, but presenting itself only in its dual aspect
Light and Heat in the double procession of masculine and feminine principles.
Therefore Binah, the Holy Spirit, is called the House
of Wisdom, the Fire self-consuming, the Face of the Sun.
Chokmah, or the Son, is Wisdom itself, is Light, is
the Sun. The Spirit therefore proceeds through the Son, and is called the
Daughter by opposition with Suph, the Mother of the
first Trinity. Chokmah, the Son, is God as Creator,
“By whom He made the Worlds.” But Adonai (Kether)
could not make the Worlds by Wisdom unless Wisdom were
dualised
with Intelligence; for as male and female, are the Image of God, it must be the
Duality, and not the Unit, by whom Creation occurs. This Holy Spirit, therefore,
is in the Son and through Him, and both are in Adonai, the Lord. Adonai is the
First Effulgence, the Light shining in Darkness, hence
He is called
(p. 178)
or bright Effulgence, the Radiance of
Concentration. Kether is Thought,
Chokmah is Wisdom, the outcome and essential attribute
of Thought. Thus the Second Triad represents Thought, Wisdom, Intelligence. And of these the first term – Thought – is
synthetic or containing; hence it is the transverse beam of the Triangle, Wisdom
and Intelligence representing the analytic or composite principles. The
Intellectual Trinity is the highest formulate; the primary Triad is abstract and
purely essential – thus Being
(Ain), Essence or Principle (Suph), Thought (Kether). Thus is conceived the Idea primary of the Subject –
Absolute.
February 27 [1884] (Ash Wednesday). – The Kabalistic order and function of the Principles (Sephiroth)
are formulated by the Zohar in the Adam-Kadmon. The Adam-Kadmon is the
Pentacle, the five-rayed star. It is the eidolon of the prototypal Humanity. The
right side of the Pentacle is Male; the left is Female – Jachin and Boaz. There is, then, in the centre of the
Pentacle a Tree; which Tree is crossed-barred; one beam representing the Tree of
Life, and the other beam the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The root of
the Tree of Life is in Malkuth: its summit is in Ain-Suph. The transverse beam is the Tree of the Knowledge of
Good and Evil, the centre-point of which is in Tiphareth
(Aphrodite). This Tree is the Tree of Time and Order, and it divides the
Pentacle into upper and lower. Malkuth (the Moon) is
out of the Microprosopus altogether: hence she is
isolated and is the ultimated opposite of the Ain-Suph. Reflects are upside down; hence
Malkuth
reflects the lower half of the Microprosopus as the
upper, and the higher as the lower. Hence Leah (Hecate)
is the upper half of the lunar sphere, and Rachel (Artemis) is the lower half
thereof. Mundane order (which is lunar order) reverses the heavenly order. The
Synthetic or Containing Principles among the Sephiroth, are indicated in
successive logical order on the centre perpendicular of the Adam-Kadmon. They are from the Apex downward: Mind, the original
personality (Kether); Heart, the original concept of
Beauty (Tiphareth); Time, the synthesis of generation
(Jesod); and Fate, the synthesis of Humanity and
resultant of generation (Malkuth), proceeding from it.
The last two are Chronos (Saturn), and Malkuth, the double-faced Artemis. In the Adam-Kadmon all the synthetic or containing principles are thus
superposed on a single line, as Brain, Heart, Generative Organs, and their
resultant or fruit – Actuality or Fate, dejected from the Microcosmos as Product. The Tree of Knowledge has its pivot
in the Heart, or point of balance between Good and Evil, the point at which the
Soul (Eva) emerges from Sense into the Gnosis. All below this line of knowledge
is sensible and rudimentary. Aphrodite represents the boundary between the upper
and the nether. The order of the Principles on the central perpendicular is
alternately male and female, Mind, Heart, Generation, Product. The Principles on
the right of the Pentacle are of Male function and correspond in character and
dignity to the synthetic horizontal which resumes and categorises them.
Thus, from the highest synthetic Principle, Mind, flows on the right side
Wisdom, and on the left Intelligence. This is the highest or intellectual
Triad. Its counterpart on the moral plane is the central Triad, whose synthesis
is Heart (Beauty), whence proceed, on the right side,
(p. 179)
Love, and on the left, Justice. But Love itself is but the extension
of the highest Being (Ain), as Justice is the extension of the highest Essence (Suph).
Love in perfect Justice may therefore be said to be God the Supreme. And thus it
is to be observed that the Second or Moral Triad is a more direct procession
from the highest and interior summit of Divinity than the primary or
Intellectual Triad, because the
direction
of the Second Triad is identical with the Divine impulsion, but the direction of
the Intellectual Triad crosses that of the Divine. The Third Triad has for its
synthetic Principle, Generation or Time, spoken of in the Kabala as the
“Leviathan of the Deep,” that is, the Devourer, or the Serpent. Its analytic and
formulative Principles are, on the right side, Energy or Contest (Ares),
and on the left side, Strength, Might, Endurance (Hera),
sometimes Glory, the King’s daughter. Strength is but an extension of
Intelligence, the female principle of the Intellectual Triad, and Energy is the
extension of Wisdom. The affinity between the first and third Triad is,
therefore, as complete as that between the second and
unmanifest. Hence we learn that Goodness is the primary direction of
Being, and that Intellect is the primary direction of dynamic or physical
world. The Divine impulsion is that of Righteousness morally understood; the
human impulsion is that of intellectual balance. The Woman
Principle, or Heart (Maria, Aphrodite) is therefore more immediately
Deific in intention than the Male Principle or Brain (Zeus, the Crown).
In the Dynamic or Third Triad, Netzach (Ares), is the
basic principle of the struggle for life, of the Evolution-theory. But all the
Principles, it must be borne in mind, are Archetypal Ideas;
Malkuth
alone – the product or seed of Generation – gives them a Double Actuality in
Existence, for Fate is the Daughter of Time.
February 28 [1884]. – Religion, according to the
Gnostics, must be founded, not on historical facts, but on ontological ideas: –
the true meaning presented by Christianity under an historical veil. The motto
of the Gnostics might be exactly given in the words of Fichte: “Men are saved, not by the historical, but by the
metaphysical.” The meaning of the term Gnosis, as applied to a system of
Philosophy, may be illustrated by the language of Plato towards the end of the
fifth book of the Republic, in which he distinguishes
between knowledge (γνŵσις) and opinion (δόξα) as being concerned respectively with the real
(τò ŭν) and the apparent (τò Фαινόmενον). When to this distinction is added
the further explanation that the objects of sense, the visible things of the
world, belong to the class of phenomena and are objects of opinion, while the
invisible essence of things, the One as distinguished from the Many, is the true
reality, discerned not by Sense but by Intellect, we shall be justified in
identifying Gnosis with that apprehension of things which penetrated beyond
their sensible appearance to their essence and cause, and which differs in name
only from that Wisdom (σοФία) which Aristotle tells us consists in
a knowledge of First Causes or Principles.
Ain-Suph (τò ăπειρον, that which has no limits) is the
highest of all possible abstractions, an incomprehensible unity, having no
definite existence, but virtually comprehending within Itself
all existence, all that is emanated from It and is contained in It, for as It is
infinite, nothing can exist beyond It. At first there proceeded
(p. 180)
forth (from Mind) a masculine or active potency
designated Wisdom. This Sephirah sent forth an
opposite, a feminine or passive potency, denominated Intelligence, and it is
from the union of these two, who are called the Father and Mother, that the
remaining Sephiroth proceeded (Ginsburg).
The
Ophite Gnostics represented evil as emanating from
Good as a transient phenomenon in the action of the mundane soul; and evil thus
becomes a necessary moment in the rhythm of existence. The
Fall
is thus a stage in the process of man’s elevation to spiritual life. Hegel, in
his Philosophie der Religion (Werke XI, p.
269), says: “The state of innocence in which there is for man no distinction
between good and evil, is the state of the brute, the unconsciousness in which
man knows nothing of good nor of evil, when that which he wills is not
determined as the one or the other; for if he knows nothing of evil, he also
knows nothing of good. (...) We find in the Bible a representation called in an
abstract manner the Fall, a representation which in its
great depth is not a mere accidental history, but the eternal necessary history
of mankind represented in an external mythical manner.” Evil, according to
Basilides, is no other than a phase in the world’s development.
Valentinus, in explaining how Spiritual Being gives Existence to Matter,
does not content himself, like Plato – whom in other respects he so closely
follows – with assuming as the germ of the natural world an unformed matter
existing from all eternity; this would be to assume two independent principles,
the Deity and Matter existing in contrast to each other and therefore neither of
them the One Absolute. Valentinus commences with one
sole spiritual Being, and the material must in some way
be evolved from It. He adopts an hypothesis which is
virtually that of Pantheism; the material world has no
real existence: it is but the shadow or reflection of the spiritual.
“In proportion as consciousness becomes definite and limited, and therefore
unable to comprehend the Absolute in its fullness, in the same proportion it
becomes conscious of an inability, a limitation, a something hindering complete
knowledge. As spiritual knowledge becomes fainter and less complete, this
indefinite negation of knowledge becomes stronger and more intense, till at last
the substance and the shadow change places,
and the mere limits to the consciousness of the spiritual assumes a definite
existence as the material. (...) All finite existence, first spiritual and then
material, though seeming to have separate and substantial Being, is but a mode
of the Absolute, becoming gradually more definite and concrete as it becomes
more limited and further removed from the primitive Absolute. Real existence is
the relation of subject to object, the objective existence becoming more unreal
as the development increases definitely, and finally culminating in the
grossness of an apparent matter, opposed to thought in nature as well as in
relation. The relation of the Ego to objective existence is therefore a seeming
relation of subject to object, and is unreal.”
(From Dean Mansel’s
Gnostic Heresies.)
[Buddha said] “And whosoever, either now or after I am dead, shall be a lamp
unto themselves and a refuge unto themselves, and shall betake themselves to no
external refuge, but holding fast to the Truth as their lamp, and to the Truth
as their refuge, shall look
(p. 181)
not for refuge to anyone besides themselves, and
shall betake themselves to no external refuge – even they among my disciples
shall reach the very topmost height. But they must be anxious to learn.” (1)
March 20 [1884]. – There are Seven Planetary States – not
planets, as certain Theosophists so-called vainly imagine – through which the
Ego must pass. This truth is typified by the Seven Circuits of the river
(p. 182)
succession of circles in the Evolution of the
(p. 183)
These seven worlds compose the Lower Triangle of the sacred hexagram. When a man
begins the life of Thought, he goes all round the seven stations again, and ends
at the state of Christhood. Every man must attain this state
potentially
before he can enter the Heavens. The man who realises it actively is a Jesus. It is
necessary in one’s own heart to be willing and able to be a Jesus; but to carry
the will into actual deeds is to attain to the third and highest circle, ending
in transmutation. There are many subordinate rounds in the chain. You may number
them until seventy times seven if you will. Or if you find it clearer, instead
of arranging your seven planetary stations as a triangle, which, of course, is
only arbitrary, you may arrange them as a succession of islands with a stream –
the
July 19 [1884]. – To the question, “Have we been
elementals?” we should reply, “We are elementals in our Jiv-atma or life-soul.” For the worlds represent Seven
Principles; and these principles, all of them potential in the first or Etheric world, are evolved in order. So there was a time
when we were only two, then three, then four, then five, then six, and we shall
be seven (fold). All the seven are in the One, but they are displayed in order.
Therefore we have in us actually, and the world has in it actually, the Jiv-atmic Forces. It would be equally a mistake to say, “We
have been animals or plants.” For we are animals and plants now, in certain
parts of our nature, as we are also mineral and gas in certain parts.
But there was a time when we stopped at gas, when we stopped at mineral, or
plant, or animal. The “We” that went through all these phases is the Selfhood,
and in Nature the Mundane Soul. Two principles descend into Nature –
Dionysos, or Spirit, and Persephone, or Soul. Persephone is
Malkuth (or the daughter of Malkuth); Dionysos is Binah (Bi-mater). Now, as the three, Father, Word, and Holy
Spirit, flow through the Upper Triangle, manifesting the
Ensoph; so in the Lower Triangle, three flow through the worlds, – the
Spirit, Dionysos, resuming the Trinity; Water, or Substance, the
Soul – Malkuth; and the Bloods, or Elemental Powers,
the Nephesh dwelling in the bloods, as distinguished
from the Ruach and the Neshamah. Dionysos is Jekedah, the Spiritual Word, or Logos, of the Man, called
also Chokmah (Wisdom), Nous.
Persephone is Neshamah, the Soul;
Ruach
is Athena, but Athena under the aspect, not of the mere anima bruta,
but of Intellect. Athena is represented as the guardian and patron of horses,
and hence is called Hippia. Horses signify the
Intellect. She is also a warlike Goddess, demolishing chimeras and vindicating
Zeus (the Reason) in all disputes. She takes an active part in the war with the
Titans, entombs Enceladus (in Etna), and slays Pallas,
the winged giant; hence her name Pallas-Athena, by which this achievement is
immortalised. Thus the Intellect is the antagonist of mere rudimentary forces.
He who sides with the Titans is
against Athena, i.e. is deprived of Intellect or Reason. As Hermes slays Argus,
the astral power, so Athena slays Pallas; that is, the mind developing
over-comes the blind instincts of the merely animal man. Athena, Poseidon, Hephaistos, and Demeter are said to be elemental Deities,
(p. 184)
but they are not thereby classified with the
Titanic elementals. The Air, Water, Fire, and Earth personified by the Gods are
the archetypal and celestial elements, not the mundane. As Air is the breath of
Jiv-atmic forces, so Intellect is the breath of the
Soul. In the world at large she is the pure reason of things, controlling the
working of the Titans. She has in charge the heart of
Dionysos. So then Spirit, Mind, and Life-force flow through the worlds
together. Persephone is the mundane consciousness flowing from
Malkuth, the Tenth Source of the Ocean. She is not, therefore, the Sixth
Principle, for she contains this and all others, developing each principle in
turn according to its order. Persephone is the Collectivity
of the Principles, and therefore she is called the World-Soul, as including all
these. The Water that bears her along is that of Existence,
FOOTNOTES
(172:1) For plans of the Tabernacle and of the Great
Pyramid respectively, see The Perfect Way (Fourth Edition), pp.
246 and 334.
(181:1)
Mahâ-Parinibbâna-Sutta.
Índice Geral das Seções Índice da Seção Atual Índice da Obra Anterior: XXVI – Um Tempo de Controvérsia Seguinte: XXVIII – A Sociedade Hermética