The Kabbalah Unveiled — S. L. MacGregor Mathers (from Knorr von Rosenroth's Latin) (1887)

[The excavation or receptacle of a Sephira is that quality whereby it receives the supernal influence from that which immediately precedes it ; hence each Sephira has a double quality of receiving and of transmitting, which passes through the four worlds, in each of which the Sephiroth exist, though in gradually decreasing light. (See Table subjoined.) The “ shells,” Qliphoth, are the demons, in whom again is a form of the Sephiroth, distorted and averse. This great dragon which is here described is evidently identical with the leviathan of Job. He is the executor of judgment, the centripetal force, the old serpent ever seeking to penetrate into Paradise ; finally, in a more exoteric sense, he is Satan and the devil, the accusing one. In the Sepher Yetzirah, a most important qabalistical book, he is called Tlieli, ThLI, the dragon. How, by Gematria, ThLI = 400 + 30 + 10 = 440 ; and if we “repress his crest” — i.e., take away the first letter, which is Th, Tau — 400, there will remain LI = 40 = M, Mem, the water. The “400 desirable worlds ’’are the numerical value of Th, and signify the power of the Tetragrammaton on the material plane (See note to section 21, foregoing.) There is much alchemical symbolism contained in the “ Siphra Dtzenioutha.” The “ Seven Inferior Emanations ” of the queen, are the seven lower Sephiroth — viz., Chesed, Geburah, Tiphereth, Hetzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malkuth ; or Microprosopus and his bride, the king and queen. “ Shells,” Qliphoth, are the evil spirits.]

26. His tail is in his head (that is, he holdeth his tail in his mouth, in order that he may form a circle, since he is said to encompass holiness). He transferred his head to behind the shoulders (that is, he raiseth his head at the back of the bride of Microprosopus, where is the place of most severe judgments), and he is despised (since in him is the extremity of judgments and severities, whence wrath is the attribute of his forms). He watch eth (that

KABBALAH.

is, he accurately searcheth out and seeketh in what place1 he may gain an entry into holiness). And he is concealed (as if laying traps ; since he insinuateth himself into the inferiors, by whose sins he hath access to the holy grades, where the carrying out of judgments is committed to him). He is manifested in one of the thousand shorter days. (Numbers are called days, and numbers of the inferior world short days ; among which tens are attributed to the factive, on account of their decimal numeration ; hundreds to the formative, since they are numbers of the light of their author, and draw their existence from the tens ; but thousands to the creative, for the same reason. But that dragon hath about this his most powerful location, whence, if a defect occurreth only in one numeration of that system through the fault of the inferiors, he is immediately manifest, and thus commenceth his accusations before the throne of glory.)

[Here is the origin of the well-known symbol of a serpent holding his tail in his mouth, like a circle — the serpent of Saturn. The reason that he raiseth his head behind the shoulders of the bride (Malkuth) is because he is, so to speak, not only the executor of judgment, but also the destroyer ; destruction as opposed to creation, death as opposed to life. For the whole Sephiroth are represented as being the balance of mercy and justice, and the tenth Sephira is especially of the nature of justice, as also is Geburah, the fifth. He is concealed, because he is not called into action till justice requires him. The term “decimal numeration ” of course refers to the ten Sephiroth. The presence of the serpent when revealed, is an accusation, because it shows that the balance is destroyed; just as in. a watch, if one of the wheels be injured* irregularity is at once manifested. Now, life, when it consists of birth into another form, necessarily implies death in the previous form. The throne of glory is the Briatic world.]

2 7. There are swellings in his scales (that is, like as in a crocodile ; because great in him is the heaping together of judgments). His crest keepeth its own place (that is, there is in him no further power of hastening to things beyond in the Outer).

THE BOOK OF CONCEALED MYSTERY.

[There is in the destroyer no “hastening to the outer,’ * because he is centripetal and not centrifugal .]