Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet of consonants, yet it is sometimes termed a vowel, and it is called "silent," although it possesses a sound which is not easily described.
Mystically, it is said to contain within itself the essence of all the other letters, for it alone correlates with the highest of the sephirothic principles, and it represents the perfect archetypal man, the Crown of Perfection. Aleph stands for the Primordial Point or Hidden Seed, the masculine or Fire Principle of Godhead that is always present on all planes of being and in every act of creation.
From the initiatory interpretation Aleph means power generated through self-control, the first lesson to be learned by the aspirant. It is always self-control which is the law of the Lord, and blessed is he who learns to walk in the way, for it is he alone who develops the powers of the true Initiate.
Numerically, Aleph intones the ONE, which is Spirit. Its color is White, the focus and circumference of vibratory light rays, which contains within itself in latency the sevenfold color spectrum. Its keyword is Perfection, for it is that Mystical Point of which the Zohar says, "The Holy and Mysterious One graved in a hidden recess one point. In that He enclosed the whole of creation as one who locks up his treasures in a palace, under one key, which is therefore as valuable as all that is stored up in that palace, for it is the key which shuts and opens." (Yod, signifying 10, is the power of Aleph at the point of visibility in creation.)
As the number 1, the power of Aleph represents Unity indivisible and eternal. One operates ceaselessly from the Creator in the highest heaven down through all realms of being to the lowest, even to the least particle of the physical universe. The cosmic forces of Aleph extend throughout all of the sevenfold septenaries.
The true or essential being of mankind is called the Virgin Spirit, and it is this which is made in the image and likeness of God. Aleph is the signature of the Virgin Spirit, but also of its first emanation or projection which is called the Divine Spirit. The Divine Spirit is the Will Principle of the Virgin Spirit, and it is termed masculine. When the Virgin Spirit is descending into matter, this is the principle first awakened, for the being must be able to cooperate with the Hierophants and Hierarchies which are in charge of its cosmic career.
The path downward into materiality is called Involution. The Will principle initiates this involutionary trend and, again, when the nadir of involution has been reached, it is the Will principle that declares, "Now I will arise and return to my Father's house." The Will which cooperates passively with the celestial Hierarchies, obeying and carrying out their behests, is the negative pole of the Will principle, and this is all that is active in Involution. When Evolution begins, however, it is the positive aspect of the Will principle that is awake and active, as the Virgin-Spirit-as-Ego takes charge of its own cosmic career, working its way up out of materiality to join the Hierarchies of celestial Beings, a Son of God among the other Sons of God.
"In God we live and move and have our being." Each aspect or attribute of God infolds and unfolds all that follows or is "below." Aleph is the first of the three mother-letters-Aleph, Mem and Schin-which correspond to the three macrocosmic "Roots" of nature, Fire, Water and Air. They correlate with the three creative sounds, tonic, dominant and sub-dominant, or the 1-3-5 notes of the octave. These three tones sound forth the chord of spirit, mind and body (or spirit, soul and body), the threefold channel in and through which man's development proceeds during each Day of God.
From this description of Aleph, Biblical students can readily correlate its attributes with those of the father of Old Testament history, Abraham, who came down from Ur of Chaldea, the city of light, to live and serve in the land of Canaan. With this understanding we are better able to interpret the promise made to Abraham by the Lord:
The Tarot glyph for Aleph is termed "The Magus" or "Magician," who is shown raising a staff or wand toward heaven with one hand while he points downward with the other. Various magical implements lie before him on an altar, emblematic of the spiritual powers possessed by the True Man (Virgin Spirit). With these powers he is able to descend into the lower worlds, and with these powers he rises out of them, returning to his Father in heaven. They are the powers which he had "when the morning stars sang together."
The blessed Lord Christ prayed to his Father that that Glory which he had before the world was made should be rendered visible to his faithful disciples, and it was done. In the first Tarot card we see the Christ Self, arrayed in garments of authority, with his powers laid out upon the altar of the universe. "As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen" — Man in the image and likeness of God.
As Aleph was the sign of the first or Will principle of the Virgin Spirit, so Beth is the sign of the second or Love-Wisdom principle, termed the Life Spirit, or, in esoteric Christianity, the Christ Within, as Aleph is the Father Within.
Beth is the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet of consonants and the first of the double letters. The double letters have two sounds, termed "hard" and "soft." Philosophically they are linked with the "play of opposites" in the universe. Aleph represents the masculine principle of God, Beth the feminine, and these two together are the bridge connecting the heavens and the earth. The two Sephiroth signified by Aleph and Beth, therefore, have a basic significance in all of the outward manifestations of Divinity in the worlds of creation. In the highest heaven, all principles abide in exaltation. When the doors to the lower realms open, Aleph and Beth are the two wings which bear the Unmanifest into the Manifest.
Cosmically interpreted, Beth is the supreme feminine power of the cosmos in exaltation — the Love of God. In Beth abide the cosmic archetypal patterns or matrices of all forms that manifest in the universe.
Many biblical sanctuaries were located in "Beth," notably Beth-el and Beth-lehem.
Beth means a house and is used in Hebrew both as a prefix and suffix. Beth-lehem means a house of bread. In this little town Rachel was buried, Ruth met Boaz and David longed for water from the well by the gate of Bethlehem before going to battle. All of these events conceal spiritual truths of much greater importance than their geographical or historical aspects would imply.
As Aleph is representative of the quintessential or Seed Man as concentrated in the head, or brain, so the other letters of the Hebrew alphabet represent the various organs and parts of the divine body and the qualities behind them which collectively constitute the True Man in a state of celestial perfection.
Beth is sometimes called "the mouth of the Man." The mouth is that into which anything can be put, and out of which anything can come; that is, it takes in the substances needed to nourish the body, and it sends forth the words of life which are vocalized in the throat and mouth. In Beth lies the mystery of the Word Transcendent.
Numerically, Beth denotes the number 2. The duad has been called "the interval between the multitude and the monad."
Since the ancients did not use numbers but instead denoted the numbers by letters, the letters of the alphabet were ascribed to the constellations along the ecliptic. When the twelvefold division of the zodiac became common throughout those parts of the world where the Hebrews chiefly lived, they adapted their ancient system to the popular astronomy, and thus the kabbalah of the solar system, with its twelve single letters for signs, the seven double letters for planets and the three mother letters for the elements, arose. The modern Indian system still retains the use of twenty-seven asterisms along the ecliptic which are denoted by numbers, and the Zohar mentions the three divine colors which find their way through twenty-seven mystic channels on the abyss.
Astrologically, Beth stands for the cosmic emanations which focus themselves in moons, and which are therefore known to mankind as lunar forces, although they are in fact macrocosmic. The lunar forces are those which relate to formations, and therefore the moon is usually the symbol of the great mother goddesses of antiquity. Aleph on the contrary is masculine and solar, representing the Fire which is complementary to the feminine Beth.
The keyword for Beth is Formation. It forms the sounds into patterns before they are sent forth. Beth is the great feminine or Word Principle out of which all things are formed and without which nothing can be made, as St. John says. It is the fall and redemption of this feminine principle in humanity that is the theme of all the Bibles of every land.
According to the philosophy of numbers, Duality introduces the fatal alternative to Unity. This is the beginning of the reign of opposites wherein we discern the significance of the fallen column familiar to the Masonic craft as well as the prominent use of black, which correlates with the feminine principle, in the Temple rituals. Black is the color of Beth, for it holds all color in repose as White (Aleph) holds all colors in activity.
The Tarot figure is the High Priestess Isis crowned with the Moon. When the full power of Isis is manifest, the Moon will no longer be her diadem. It will rest, instead, beneath her feet and she, like Aleph, will be crowned with the glory of the Sun. I hen man's physical body will be lifted beyond the limitations of disease and death. Man and woman will be equal in the world and mankind will know the noble fulfillment of the Song of Solomon, "The King's Daughter shall be all glorious within."
The High Priestess sits between two pillars, the one black and the other white. These are the pillars which stand before the entrance of every Mystery Temple, and they appear repeatedly in all esoteric symbolic systems. We shall refer to them many times in the following pages.
Gimel, the third letter of the Hebrew alphabet, is another double letter like Beth. It represents a new product formed from the union of Aleph and Beth. This blending on all planes of the principles of Fire and Water produces a new life, which is termed Mercury by the ancient alchemists and by the modern esoteric Christians the Christ Child that must be born within.
Cosmically interpreted, Gimel is the outpouring of Aleph and Beth-or masculine and feminine conjoined — on the highest plane of manifestation. As God is in reality ONE, so also the Root Force of the universe is ONE FORCE, but in manifestation it is first dual, then triple, then manifold.
Numerically, Gimel denotes the number 3.
God's "Duality" is spoken of as his inferior and superior natures, the former constituting his manifested Self and the latter his essential Being. An ancient authority represents God speaking the following words:
"My inferior nature is the bond of union between myself and all created things. Hence it is likened to Gimel because the camel beareth rich and costly merchandise. And again, for that the camel betokeneth travel and communication becomes thus a symbol of change and of the flux and mingling of ideas borne upon the stream of memory.
"Happy is he who bestrideth the camel of my inferior nature which bringeth them who learn the secret of its mastery unto Me their lord. A task most difficult and laborious is the conquest of the power of recollection. Strength and courage and patience must they have who gain this victory, but these shall be as kings and princes in this world and even as gods in the world to come."
Physiologically, Gimel represents the throat as the channel through which certain occult life forces are continuously flowing between head and heart. More especially, perhaps, we are referred to the larynx as the point of crossing of the lemniscate currents which unite, the centers of light in heart and brain. (Beth is really more than the mouth alone, but signifies also the entire cavity of mouth and throat as holding sound.)
In the words of the Zohar, "When the Holy One wills that his glory should be glorified, there issues from his thought a determination that it should spread forth, whereupon it spreads from the undiscoverable region of thought until it rests in garon (throat), a spot through which perennially flows the mystic force of the spirit of life ... It then seeks to spread and disclose itself still further, and there issue from that spot fire, air and water all compounded together the thought that was hitherto undisclosed and withdrawn in itself is now revealed through sound. In the further extension and disclosure of the thought, the voice strikes against the lips, and thus comes forth speech which is the culmination of the whole and in which thought is completely disclosed."
Gimel represents the third of the major Force Centers in the Image, or Archetypal Man, and it projects the threefold forces throughout the entire created universe. Hence the Law of Three generally prevails from beginning to end in the progressive world cycles.
Beth is the Word as it was with and in God. Gimel is the Hermetic Word made flesh and dwelling among the other creatures of the universe, for the head (intellect, understanding) and the heart (love, wisdom) unite at the point of equilibrium in Gimel. Gimel is the universal power which condenses in the planet Mercury.
Isaiah speaks as one in whom this equilibrium has come to pass when he says, "So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth; it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereunto I sent it."
The Tarot figure, which is feminine, holds aloft an eagle. Here we flnd a beautiful intimation of the coming of the Aquarian Age when, by subjection of the lower nature through the will power of Aleph and its transmutation into soul power by the love of Beth, the emancipated one, Gimel, citizen of the new heaven and new earth, is born. Gimel is a symbol of power and of consummation set amidst "the fullness of strength.
The number 3 is important in all metaphysical and kabbalistic systems. Aleph, Beth and Gimel denote the first and basic three degrees of Masonry. Gimel is the number (3) of the Master Mason, and we shall study its higher developments in 9 Q x 3) and its esoteric, or hidden, connection with Beth, Tzaddi and Tau.
Women will be included in the exoteric Masonry of the Aquarian Age, as they are already included in the present esoteric Masonry of the Mystery Schools.
The fourth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is Daleth; it signifies the number 4; and it is the third of the double letters. In Hebrew Daleth means Door.
Cosmically, Daleth is the point of transition from one world to another. The key to the door is the accumulated spiritual essence which nourishes the dormant faculties of the ego. The key having been found, the door opens upon an ever-expanding vista of spiritual glories.
"Open the door," chants the Psalmist, "that the King of Glory may come in." On this terrestrial plane Daleth is the door of Initiation through which the candidate passes when the "King of Glory" (the divinity within himself has awakened sufficiently to demand that the mystic door shall open before his spoken word.
Daleth is thus the doorway to higher accomplishments, but it is also sometimes called the Cosmic Womb-the open passageway by which man descends life after life from the higher realms to gain renewed earth experiences in the great reincarnational cycle.
Four is the feminine number and it is significant that although the division of the sexes occurred during the middle or latter half of the Third Root Race, it was not until the appearance of the Fourth Root Race that woman began to develop the inventiveness and ingenuity that will one day lead her back into a perfect relationship with her own divine or God-consciousness.
To signify the supreme importance of the work of the heart, many of the artists of the Middle Ages painted the Madonna, representing the perfected feminine principle, in an arch or doorway, an intimation of the Star of the Morning which heralds the coming of a new day. Early Christians called the Christ "Our Lucifer," that is, Our Day Star, Son of the Morning. Daleth is represented Biblically by the vision of Jacob's ladder upon which the angels of God descend and ascend as the consciousness of the Initiate (Jacob) expands to comprehend the meaning of the various degrees or stages extending from earth to heaven. Signifying the number 4, Daleth is representative of the sacred Quaternary, known Biblically in the Four Letters of the Name of God, or Tetragrammaton, Yod - He - Vau - He (JHVH). These four letters are the mystic formula which opened to Moses the wonders and powers of the seen and the unseen. It conceals within itself the magical essence of the word AMEN, used by ancient Egyptians and Hebrews and also by the early Christians as an invocation of cosmic Truth. Its Tarot picture is the youth seated upon a cube (in the Egyptian series)
Man, a creature of impulses and passions, must pass through door after door, in life after life, until he attains unto a likeness of the Divine, which is his ultimate goal.
Note that each one of the Hebrew letters represents some attribute which man is learning to unfold within himself. Daleth, or Four, represents the "Perfect Square," and implies both balance and harmony, a lifting into a higher plane of consciousness wherein one finds strength and freedom to fashion a more perfect life here and now, and to attain wisdom and power in the spiritual realms. Its keywords are Realization, Freedom and Aspiration.
The meaning of the fifth letter, HE, is Life. The importance of this letter is shown in the fact that it occurs twice in the sacred Tetragrammaton JHVH. According to certain kabbalists, the letters are taken alternately as masculine and feminine, beginning with Jod as masculine, while H - V - H hints of the Divine Feminine in God-head, in this position representing Polarity on the high creative level.
The letter He means a window. Solomon sings in his Song of Songs: My beloved looks forth at the windows. Daleth is the Door by which the soul descends into incarnation or ascends in Initiation. He is the window looking out to the heavens. He is the breath of life.
The number 5 is often represented geometrically by the five-pointed star called the Pentangle or Pentagram, sacred in all spiritual and magical mysteries. It signifies the human being in his present status, midway between the animal and the god. One of the most important meanings of the number five is its position as half of all that is contained in the Unity of ten. The work of five, He, is so to train the human will that it becomes one with the Divine Will.
Five is therefore the number of the Seal of Solomon, the holy five-pointed Star of the Disciple, the Fiery Star which raises the Initiate into higher realms of consciousness. The Seal of Solomon is also called the Endless Knot, because the five-pointed star can be drawn continuously with one line, and it symbolizes the spirit of man tied into the physical body which, with its head and four limbs, may be inscribed within a star, or a star inscribed within the bodily form. When the fire forces of the spirit have grown strong enough, the Star rises aloft.
In these studies we are following, be it noted, the system in which twelve only of the Hebrew letters correlate with the signs of the zodiac, these are the twelve singles. The seven double letters correlate with the seven ancient planets, while the three mother letters stand alone above all, symbolic of the elements. More anciently, the twenty-two letters symbolized asterisms along the ecliptic. He is the first of the twelve single letters. (Aleph is one of the transcendental mother letters.) He therefore represents Aries.
In the Tarot the letter He is represented by a masculine figure, and the numerological character of the number 5 is that of mobility, movement, change, variety, progression and the ability to achieve high attainment. Although the pentagram (five-pointed star) is its perfect symbol, it is also symbolized by a square with a central point, which is 4 plus 1, the perfect square with I added.
In the formation of the letter He we can trace the eventual blending of the two powers which were separated at the time mankind was divided into sexes. This blending is the Mystic Marriage. It was beautifully illustrated in ancient Egyptian Temple ceremonial when the aspirant was brought into the presence of the great god Osiris, there to receive his blessing as he listened to the triumphant chants of the Temple choirs. For here he perceived that he had indeed achieved that high estate in which neither feminine nor masculine was predominant over the other, but both functioned in harmonious equality.
This was exemplified in the hymn which was chanted during the ceremony of Initiation.
And so also modern mystics chant of the Father-Mother-God omnipotent.
The exquisite Temple dances performed by virgin maidens during these initiatory ceremonies represented the mystical rapture engendered in the aspirant during the Mystic Marriage Rite of the soul clad in its starry "golden wedding garment."
Vau, the sixth letter, conveys the meaning of Light and Love, as God Powers which are present in every created being. It is the third letter of the Tetragrammaton JHVH. It is also second of the single letters. Vau denotes the number 6.
The Bible states that God is Light and also that God is Love. St. John tells us that when the God Power of the Love-Light is sufficiently developed or unfolded within us, we shall love our fellow-men as God has loved us, and it is then that we shall know all the wonders and glories of the new heaven and the new earth.
Since — in the system which we are using — the twelve singles relate to the signs of the zodiac, we find that Vau, the second of these single letters, relates to Taurus, the sign ruling the neck. The center of creation is located in the throat when generation has been transmuted into regeneration, and then the perfected man knows and can can speak the Creative Fiat.
Vau signifying the number 6, its symbol is sixfold, being the double triangle or interlaced triangles, which is the seal of wisdom, revealing that through the inner light the power comes to investigate "the beyond." Man can now live in both the creative and the formative worlds and consciously relate the workings of the two.
The kabbalist notes here that the hexagram or interlaced triangles, is the symbol of David as the pentagram, or five-pointed star, is the symbol of Solomon. Solomon's Star shows control over the elements and forces of nature, David's Star is the Star of the Messiah of prophecy. Here again is the union of 5 and 6, yielding the Master Number 11.
The number 6 is formed from two sets of 3, which represents a tremendous power whether used for good or ill. If used on the lower plane, it can lead to De-generation, but if used on the higher plane it leads to Regeneration. These two paths are indicated on the sixth Tarot card, "The Lovers." The inner Christ Light is beautifully symbolized as a blazing sun from the center of which radiates the Love Principle in the form of Cupid, the god of love. We think of Cupid as presiding solely over human affections. Not so the ancients. In their mysticism Cupid aimed his arrow at man's pineal gland rather than at his heart, symbolizing cosmic or universal love attained through Initiation.
Thus in the Egyptian Tarot system the "Genius" is shown holding an arrow which points unmistakably toward the pineal gland. The neophyte stands between two maidens who represent worldliness and spirituality respectively. The esotericist knows that when the pineal gland force center is aroused into activity, the whole body becomes full of light, and the life is dedicated to loving, selfless service for the upliftment and blessing of all. This is the high ideal given in the sixth Tarot card and in Vau, the sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
The power of the Christed One, Vau, is placed between He, the Breath of Life, and Zain, the Victor. Thus its meaning is clearly shown. Until the Christ Consciousness is developed, the youth does not recognize the difference between love and sense gratification, but when the Christ is truly awake, the lower love loses its power.
Zain is the seventh letter of the Hebrew alphabet; it is used to denote the number 7, and it is the last letter of the first septenary. It is third of the single letters. Zain represents the seven steps or degrees leading to Illumination. Its keyword is Victory. It stands for the right directive influence of the spiritual Will expressing through the Christed or spiritualized consciousness.
Cosmically, it represents power which, focused by Will, permeates and interpenetrates all worlds.
Physiologically and astrologically, this third of the single letters represents the arms and Gemini — two projections of power, a positive and a negative — under Gemini, whose dual nature they reflect.
The number seven of Zain is a point of transition between the higher and lower realms. After passing through the six degrees of the creative and formative worlds, man is ready for another degree, which is represented by the number seven. Next to Unity, it is the number most frequently used to denote perfection. Zain, following and completing the "six days" or steps, heralds rest, attainment, at-one-ment, completion.
Sometimes seven is called the Number of Perfection. It is formed of the "perfect square" of four, to which has been added the trinity of three, or the Will-Wisdom-Activity principles of God-in-Man. The Bible tells us that when God viewed His fresh new creation he pronounced it good and then rested on the seventh day. The Kabbalah says that God had made several earlier creations which He did not pronounce good and which He had to destroy, a clear reference to the processes of evolution which unfortunately the orthodoxies did not retain.
The seventh Tarot is called "The Conqueror." This means not a conqueror of worlds or men but a conqueror of self, a supreme spiritual achievement. The seventh Tarot Arcanurn contains the symbols of the Red Lion and the White Eagle. Alchemically, the blood of the Lion and the gluten of the Eagle are important symbols of transmutation. In the great mystic brotherhoods which have existed since man became man there are exalted Beings who never know the limitations of time or distance, for they can communicate instantaneously by means of thought transference. The same power will one day belong to all mankind, but this cannot be so long as men harbor thoughts of evil, fear, hatred and suspicion toward one another.
Zain is sometimes represented by a scepter and sometimes by a sword-the latter being the symbol of Truth, also of Victory. Hence Zain typifies the attainment of high spiritual Truth and the Victory which is complete self-conquest.
This self-conquest leads up to the illumination which is attained at the end of the first septenary of initiatory degrees. It is said that the incarnational cycle proceeds in groups of seven, that is, that certain lines of causation or karma work themselves out in series of seven lifetimes, during which a likeness can be traced from one embodiment to another. At the end of the seventh incarnation of any one series there is a complete change, and the next cycle of seven unfolds an entirely different type of causation. It is also said that our incarnational cycles take us through the twelve signs of the zodiac, these twelve signs being ruled by the seven planets. Again, the world periods of the cosmic evolutionary scheme are given as seven in number, and the Hebrew alphabet divides into three sections of seven letters each, with Tau as the consummation.
— Corinne Heline
