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The interlaced triangles at the top of this diagram and the double triangle at its center symbolize the interaction of the three fold creative powers of God on the spiritual and on the material planes of being.
Deity expresses Itself as Will, Wisdom and Activity. In Christian terminology these three aspects of the triune God are known as the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
In the mystical interpretation of the Hebrew alphabet is outlined the path of human evolution from clod to God.
Yod, the tenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, represents the Divine creative power which is latent in all beings. It is for this reason that the letter Yod is found in some form within each and every one of the twenty-two Hebrew letters.
By the processes of spiritual evolution, man, made in the image and likeness of his Creator, is ultimately to attain to the state of Divine perfection. Such is the high and glorious destiny awaiting all humanity.
The letters of the Hebrew alphabet, twenty-two in number, are cosmic hieroglyphs of great spiritual significance and power. Hebrews, Greeks, Romans — among others — used letters to indicate numbers, and therefore there are "kabbalistic" systems in all of these languages; but the Greek and Roman systems have not survived, and the Hebrew kabbalah alone has come down to modern times by way of Christian and Hebrew schools of esoteric Bible interpretation. Intricate ciphers have been created from the elements of letters and numbers in which to record mysteries for future generations. Three sets of symbols were chiefly used: Gematria, in which letters and numbers were interchanged and used as a cipher; Notarikon, similar to the Roman shorthand, in which initial or final letters of words in a sentence might be formed into a code word, or a sacred word or secret might be turned into a sentence; and Temura, by which hundreds of combinations and "permutations" of words, names and secret messages might be discovered in the Bible text through substitution. In this last category the "combinations of Tziruph" were especially popular from ancient times. These consisted of alphabetical ciphers in which one letter was substituted for another in about as many ways as there were letters in the alphabet. One of these ciphers, the atbash cipher, has been discovered worked into the Dead Sea Scrolls in at least one instance.
The word "kabbalah" is popularly used to designate all of these mystical codes and ciphers of esoteric Judaism by which occult mysteries are drawn from the text of the Hebrew-Christian Bible. "Kabbalah," however, is more than a mere secret code of letters and numbers. The term means "to receive" a "Secret Doctrine" or Teaching transmitted from Master to Disciple and also the mystical state of consciousness by which the mind of man is attuned to the Wisdom of God and becomes God-taught.
The Hebrew letters are used for numbers in this way: Aleph to Yod, the first ten letters, are written to signify the numbers 1 to 10. From Kaph, the eleventh letter, the numeration is by tens; instead of being written for the number 11, Kaph or K is written for 20. The letters follow in order from Kaph (K) to Koph- or Quoph (Q), signifying the numbers from 20 to 100. The remaining three letters, like Quoph, are written for hundreds: R for 200, S for 300, and T for 400. The numeration is then taken by the five "Final" letters. These are the letters which have a different symbol when they fall at the end of a word. Beginning again with Kaph, K-final is 500, M-final is 600, N-final is 700, P-final is 800, and Tz-final is 900. For 1,000, throughout the Old Testament, a word is used which is read "Many," and which may also denote tribe or family. Sometimes Ayin (Oin) is ascribed to zero.
The Greco-Egyptian mysteries of Thoth-Hermes were taken into the Hebrew kabbalah during the Greek Period, when Platonism and Pythagoreanism also were incorporated in a new form. So wide was this interchange that even the Druidic ciphers show Hebraic interactions as well as Greek, dating to a time when the Druids, like the Egyptians, were beginning to use the Greek letters in which to write their own language. Thus the various ciphers mingled, passed along from one Mystery School to another. Druid and Hebrew numerologies alike show Pythagorean influence because Pythagorean teachers had found their way to western Europe, including the British Isles, and Pythagoras himself was born and lived during the era when the Hebrews were gathering together their ancient documents in Babylon and in Jerusalem after the Exile. Pythagoras had, indeed, in his youth visited Mount Carmel, sacred to the memory of Elijah and his School of Prophets and it was at Babylon that he reached the crown and summit of wisdom, Iamblichus tells us. Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldees and was learned in the Babylonian wisdom; the Hebrews who were exiled in Babylon renewed their ancient knowledge and adopted anew the Aramaic spoken by their ancestors. Hence the Babylonian science and astral mysticism are discernible in both the Hebrew and Pythagorean systems, and Pythagorean teachers of the far west of Europe built a bridge which eventually united Christianity and Druidism. It is significant that Greek culture had taken roots in Gaul during and before the time that the Greek spirit of Athens was faltering and failing.
Pythagoras is credited with having discovered the correlation of numbers and musical vibrations and is called the creator of the modem musical scale. He taught that numbers are principles which have no age or beginning but have always existed as inherent powers of being in cosmic space. Numbers precede both tone and sound, which are represented by the written letters. Every one of the Hebrew letters has a numerical equivalent, and this is the basis of the system of Gematria in which numbers and letters are substituted to create a cipher concealing many profound meanings for the initiated. Similar principles have been applied to the English alphabet, based on the Arabic numbers from 1 to 10.
In this book, however, we confine our attention to the Hebrew alphabet and endeavor to show how it conceals and reveals certain ancient Mysteries which are otherwise lost to history. This is first intimated in the letter Kaph, which is the 11th of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and in the Tarot by a maiden closing the mouth of a lion with her hand. In the zodiac Leo is the fifth sign and Virgo the sixth, their numbers 5 and 6 adding up to 11.
According to kabbalistic modes of interpretation, the number 22 amplifies, augments or completes the forces of 2 and 11, being the "double" of both of these numbers. It also amplifies and completes the forces of 1 (one). The numbers 11 and 22 are a summation of the influence of all the letters of the Hebrew alphabet considered as mystical powers.
Spiritually Virgo correlates with the feminine principle, Leo with the masculine. The feminine principle is termed "fallen," being dominated by the masculine on the physical plane; but in the alchemical processes of regeneration the feminine pole of spirit is brought into balance with the masculine, and equilibrium (11) is established, without and within.
The numbers 11 and 22 are, in a mystical sense, supernumeraries, for Ten (10) is the true basis of the Hebrew alphabet, and a profound mystery attaches to both numbers in the kabbalistic theosophy.
Tau, the Cross, is the last of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The series terminates with the cross, Tau, not as a symbol of pain, tragedy and defeat but as an emblem of victory over limitation and the release of the spirit into new spheres of freedom. When the supreme Way-Shower carried the cross up Mount Calvary, a symbol of the incompleteness and duality of human consciousness, He was still abiding in the exalted state that had found expression in the words, "My yoke is easy and my burden is light."
The number 11 marks man's entrance into the new heaven and the new earth through the attainment of polarity or equilibrium, which is the consummation of the initiatory work upon the terrestrial planes. The number 22 marks the entrance into the realm of everlasting light and the state of celestial being. Eleven finishes all karmic causation and concludes all earthly pilgrimages. Twenty-two partakes of the waters of eternal life and self-conscious immortality. The Initiate henceforth returns into earth life only as a Brother of Compassion in times of human crisis to bring succor and release to souls in pain and bondage or to inaugurate and regulate new processes and set the keynote of new and higher evolutionary trends.
As the letter-numbers 11 and 22 convey the secret of the victory over the forces of materiality, so the Hebrew alphabet as a whole is constructed on a pattern which relates the 22 letters to the 7 planes of life in which man is evolving. The letters are grouped into three septenaries (3 x 7 = 21), with the 22nd standing alone. These septenaries embody all of the processes involved in the 3 steps or degrees leading to Initiation or self-mastery, which in Esoteric Masonry are designated as the Apprentice, the Fellowcraft and the Master of the Craft, and in Esoteric Christianity are designated the Neophyte, the Probationer and the Disciple. The syrubol of both is the finished stone, which is a Cube that unfolds to become a Cross.
Again, the 22 letters are divided into groups of 3, 7 and 12. There are 3 mother letters, 7 doubles and 12 singles. The 3 mother letters are Aleph, Mem and Schin; the 7 doubles are Beth, Daleth, Kaph, Phe, Resh, Gimel and Tau; the 12 singles are He, Vau, Zain, Teth, Nun, Samekh, Ayin, Tsaddi, Heth, Yod, Quoph and Lamed.
When the letters are studied as numbers a further mystery unfolds, for the meaning of all things visible and invisible lies in Number. In the Bible, that most mystic of books, the numbers 1, 3, 7 and 12 occur repeatedly throughout, and considered from the numerological viewpoint the Bible mysteries are found to be based largely upon these numbers, which are ciphers of infinite and illimitable God-Power.
This arrangement of letters and numbers is an intimation of the profound cosmic significance of the Hebrew alphabet, both as a whole and in each one of its parts. It follows the numerical pattern of our immediate universe and the solar system in which our planet has its being.
It is well and truly said that man's first Bible was the starry heavens. There we behold the twelve glorious zodiacal Hierarchies which surround the solar system to which Earth belongs. The planets and other bodies of this system are receiving centers through which forces emanating from the zodiacal Hierarchies are focused and do ordered work, as shown in the laws of evolution and the great world cycles in which civilizations rise and fall. The twelve celestial Hierarchies pour their powers upon and through the planets of our solar system to guide, strengthen and illumine the living beings thereon and are part of the forces we know as the Forces of Destiny.
The Sun, which is central to the planets, is the principal focus for the powers poured out by the zodiacal Hierarchies. It symbolizes the Holy Trinity relative to our system-Father, Son and Holy Ghost-that vast threefold Power of the cosmos which is reflected in the human being as Will, Wisdom and Activity principles of the Virgin Spirit or essential man; the trinity of force symbolically described as Fire, Water and Air (to which Earth is added to form the Quaternary). These are cosmic principles which fructify, nourish and sustain all things and which are aroused to a specialized action in the work of Initiation.
The threefold Power, or Solar Logos, correlates with the 3 mother letters of the Hebrew alphabet: Aleph (Fire), Mem (Water) and Schin (Air). In the same way the 12 constellations of the zodiac correlate with the 12 single letters, and the 7 planets with 7 double letters.
In terms of the planet Earth the 22 letters and their grouping into 3 mothers, 7 doubles, 12 singles and 3 septenaries, with final Tau omitted, embody the sevenfold mystery of the evolution of life, form and consciousness. Each letter, moreover, in and of itself, contains a sevenfold meaning, and in the following pages we shall touch briefly upon these.
Our primary aim is to provide a useful key-book for the biblical student and teacher. Since we confine our discussion to universally applicable principles, this key-book can serve equally well any creed or cult which accepts the Bible as the Book of Light — that Book which, in the words of the illumined seer, Max Heindel, was given to man "by the Recording Angels, who gave to each and all exactly what they need for their development. They, are above mistakes, and if we seek the light we shall find it there."
The sevenfold meaning of the Hebrew letters include the numerological, the astrological, the physiological, the initiatory and the cosmic and their relation to tone and to color.
Since the relationships of the Hebrew letters with sound and color are the least understood, we may say by way of introduction that the 3 mother letters (Aleph, Mem, Schin) represent the dominant, sub-dominant and tonic, or the 1-3-5 intervals of the diatonic scale. These three power ciphers signify also the three fundamental colors of the spectrum: blue, yellow and red (or in the kabbalistic reading, blue, green and red, with white given as a fourth color). The three basic colors symbolize the threefold being of spirit, mind and body; or spirit, soul and body. The 12 single letters correlate with the 12 tones of the chromatic scale, each of which is associated with a distinctive color. The 7 doubles correlate with the 7 tones of the scale and the 7 colors of the rainbow or color spectrum as commonly recognized; the 8th note of the scale completing one octave and beginning the next. Musicians are often very sensitive to the color emanations of music.
The Zohar states, "Darkness is a black fire, strong in color. There is a red fire, strong in visibility, a yellow fire, strong in shape, and a white fire, which includes all. Darkness is the strongest fire." The last refers to the heat waves which are not visible as light.
Again the Zohar states, "And I will look upon it (the rainbow) that I may remember the everlasting covenant: This means that God's desire is constantly for the bow and that he who is not visible therein will not enter into the presence of his Master. The inner meaning of the words, And I will look upon it, is to be found in the words, And set a mark upon the forehead (Ezekiel ix,4), so as to be clearly visible ..." This is assuredly so, but the rainbow that appears in the sky has a profound mystical significance.
"Do not expect the Messiah until the rainbow appears decked out in resplendent colors which will illumine the world... At present the bow appears in dull colors ... but at that time it will appear in its full panoply of colors as a bride does for her husband."
And again, "The three colors are displayed in all who issue from the side of holiness.... And if you ponder the mystery of grades, you will find how the colors radiate to all sides until they enter through those twenty-seven mystic channels which are the sides of the door that stop up the abyss. All this is known to the adepts in mystic lore."
These passages, among others in the Zohar, attest to the clairvoyance of the sages who guarded the Secret Doctrine of Israel. "The three colors are displayed in all who issue from the side of holiness." These words show that the auric colors of angels and human beings had been observed and understood by the mystics of Israel.
Yet again the Zohar states "The firmament with its enclosed square contains the gamut of all the colors. Outstanding are four colors, each engraved with four translucent signs, both higher and lower. These when decomposed become twelve. They are green, red, white and sapphire, which is made up of all these colors.... This was the appearance of the likeness of the Glory of the Lord ... It is not permitted to gaze at the rainbow when it appears in the heavens, as that would be disrespectful to the Shekinah, the hues of the rainbow here below being a replica of the supernal splendor, which is not for man's gaze. The three primary colors and the one compounded of them are all one symbol and they all show themselves in the cloud. And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone."
There is no real contradiction in these passages. They show that not only were the kabbalists clairvoyant, but they were aware of the science of their times. They list both the additive and the subtractive primaries of the solar spectrum, in one of which green is a primary and in the other yellow. Black is the end result of the subtractive primaries; White is that of the additive. Sometimes Indigo is said to include all colors, or Purple. The subtractive (pigment) colors all tend toward Black when mingled together; the additive colors of light rays tend toward White when mingled together. Moreover, these kabbalists were aware of five extra colors not usually counted in the solar spectrum, of which the peach-blossom color mentioned by Goethe is one.
The Shekinah Glory consists of these colors as revealed to the spiritual vision, and the colors of the rainbow as we know them are but feeble replicas of the celestial colors.
The vowels are not listed in the Hebrew alphabet of 22 letters, although Aleph, the first letter, is really a vowel. They are the principle of vocalization, of speech and music as uttered by the human voice. The secret Name of God is not Jah, Jahveh, or Yahweh, or Elohim in any of its forms, or Adonai. It consists of the vowels which are placed and sung in a certain way and, when chanted by the ancient Temple choirs, were heard as a mighty thunder which shook the structure to its foundations. Only the modem pipe organ can achieve an equivalent effect to that of human voices chanting the vowels of the Great Name of God. In the Book of Revelation St. John refers to them as "the Seven Thunders" which uttered their voices. There are really more than the five vowels — a, e, i, o and u as familiarly known. In some systems they are enumerated as nine, ten or even more.
Demetrius, an Alexandrian philosopher who lived in the second century, wrote, "In Egypt the priests sing hymns to the gods by uttering the seven vowels in succession, the sound of which produces as strong a musical impression on their hearers as if flute and lyre were used." The study of the Hebrew letters shows us what those seven vowels represented: the Seven Spirits Before the Throne of God; but these Seven Spirits were named publicly only by the seven double letters.
Speech, no less than song, is impossible without vowel sounds. Just as the Hebrew letters, counted as 22, do not include the vowels, so also the early Greeks and Egyptians did not have vowels. Eventually the vowels were written down, but in the Temple Mysteries the true vowels were a secret handed from Master to disciple, and without personal instruction the meaning of the texts could not be understood except in a superficial way.
Ten basic vowel sounds are noted in modern Hebrew textbooks, for which there are fourteen vowel-points and signs. Accents also are used. Kabbalists sometimes ascribe the ten numbers to the ten vowel sounds.
The Zohar says, "What is this seed? It consists of the graven letters, the secret source of the Torah, which issued from the first point. That point showed ... certain three vowel-points, holem, shureq, and hireq, which combined with one another and formed one entity, to wit, the Voice which issued through-their union. When this Voice issued, there issued with it its mate, which comprises all the letters."
This mystery was not the sole possession of the Hebrews of history. It goes back to the very beginning of civilization in antediluvian Atlantis, and some form of the Mystic Word of Power is found in every known language, with the possible exception of very primitive tribes still existing today in a state of stone-age culture.
Almost as obscure as the correlation with music and color is the physiological interpretation of the Hebrew letters. In this interpretation we have the kabbalistic correlation of the letters with the bodily form and organs of the Macrocosmic Man, Adam Kadmon, and with his reflection in the body of terrestrial man, Adam.
The seven double letters are so called because each one of them possesses two sounds, one strong and the other weak, aspirated or unaspirated, representing the active and passive principles, and related to the planetary principle, which is dual. Each of the double letters represents one. of the Elohim, who are both god and goddess. The names of the seven double letters are.
Philosophically these stand for the seven "Opposites" as qualities: Life and its opposite, Death; Peace and its opposite, Strife; Knowledge and its opposite, Ignorance; Wealth and its opposite, Poverty; Grace and its opposite, Sin; Fruitfulness and its opposite, Sterility; Dominion and its opposite, Slavery. (Sepher Yetzirah.) They correspond to the six directions of space — East, West, North, South, Depth and Height, all sustained from the Central Point, which made the Seventh. When these seven double letters had been formed God made with them the seven planets, the seven days, and also the seven "gates" in man, which are the seven orifices of the human body, which are all really double.
The triangular bone of the lower spine, called the sacrum, had a very peculiar and important significance in all ancient kabbalism, which has not always been understood aright. This is the "bone" which was "immortal," around which the entire body was to be reconstructed in the Resurrection, and since this was taken literally and materially, many strange concepts flourished about it. Esotericists have., their own interpretation, for this is the symbol of the Sacral Lotus, where the Fire-Force sleeps, and it is the force, not the sacrum-bone, which is the agent of immortality and spiritual resurrection in the deathless body of Adeptship.
The sacrum is the "os sacrum," or sacred bone, and it is mentioned many times in the Zohar. It connects with the pelvis in man. The pelvic girdle is a broad shallow basin which supports the viscera. The keystone of the girdle is the sacrum. It supports the backbone and locks the arch from behind. At birth the sacrum varies from four to seven vertebrae; these unite into one bone. Above the sacrum rises the vertebral column. The vertebral column or spine proper consists of the seven neck vertebrae called cervical, twelve thoracic vertebrae and five lumbar vertebrae, making twenty-four in all. Five round bones, about the size of peas, lie at the extreme lower end of the spine; these are the coccyx or tail bone. The human being has three more vertebrae than the animal, thirty-one instead of twenty-eight.
In Egypt the physicians had observed that there are seven neck-bones, and these were associated with the "Ladder of Osiris." Egyptologists have been considerably astonished to find that these neck-bones are also mysteriously associated with the sacrum, which is at the opposite end of the spine. The findings are not so astonishing as they seem, for the entire backbone is the Ladder of Osiris.
The twelve single letters refer to the twelve signs of the zodiac:
Physiologically the three mother letters, Aleph, Mem and Schin, are associated with the brain, as kabbalistically they derive from the highest Triad of Powers behind the Face of the Grand Man, Adam Kadmon, who is the Macrocosmic Adam. Unquestionably the ancient priest physicians knew that injury to the brain affected certain specific areas of the body, and so some kabbalists teach that these three mother letters govern the entire body. As the roots of Fire, Water and Air, they are the first outbreathings of the Divine Word which is made flesh in the manifested universe.
The mystic vowel sounds, which are unwritten, correlate to the tremendous powers which travel through the central canal of the spine and which resound in the seven ventricles of the brain, where they are visible to the spiritual vision as light and color. Phonetically they relate to the resonance chambers of mouth and face.
Aleph might perhaps be termed a consonant-vowel, for it is listed with the consonants yet it is a vowel, but like the other vowels its pronunciation varies and must be determined by tradition. The ancients realized that even the consonants could not be enunciated alone without some small portion of sound emanating from lungs and throat, and this is symbolized in Aleph. Ayin, or Oin, which is, like Aleph, called "silent," is ascribed to the vowel sound O as well as to Zero by some kabbalists.
— Corinne Heline
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