The Kabbalah Unveiled — S. L. MacGregor Mathers (from Knorr von Rosenroth's Latin) (1887)
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(8) The pneumatical treatise called BITh ALHIM, Beth Blohim , or the “ House of the Elohim,” edited by Rabbi Abraham Cohen Irira, from the doctrines of Rabbi Yitzchaq Loria. It treats of angels, demons, elemental spirits, and souls.
(e) The “Book of the Revolutions of Souls” is a peculiar and discursive treatise, and is an expansion of Rabbi Loria’s ideas.
26. The SPR SPIRVTh, S'epher Sephiroth, or “ Book of the Emanations,” describes, so to speak, the gradual evolution of the Deity from negative into positive existence.
27. The ASh MTzRP, Asch Metzareph , or “ Purifying
Fire,” is hermetic and alchemical, and is known to few,
and when known is understood by still fewer.
28. The principal doctrines of the Qabalah are designed to solve the following problems : —
(a) The Supreme Being, His nature and attributes.
((3) The Cosmogony.
(y) The creation of angels and man.
(8) The destiny of man and angels.
(e) The nature of the soul.
(2) The nature of angels, demons, and elementals.
(77) The import of the revealed law.
(0) The transcendental symbolism of numerals.
(c) The peculiar mysteries contained in the Hebrew letters.
(k) The equilibrium of contraries.
29. The u Book of Concealed Mystery ” opens with these i6
KABBALAH, .
words : “ The Book of Concealed Mystery is the book of the equilibrium of balance.” What is here meant by the terms “equilibrium of balance”? Equilibrium is that harmony which results from the analogy of contraries, it is the dead centre where, the opposition of opposing forces being equal in strength, rest succeeds motion. It is the central point. It is the “ point within the circle ” of ancient symbolism. It is the living synthesis of counterbalanced power. Thus form may be described as the equilibrium of light and shade ; take away either factor, and form is viewless. The term balance is applied to the two opposite natures in each triad of the Sephiroth, their equilibrium forming the third Sephira in each ternary. I shall recur again to this subject in explaining the Sephiroth, This doctrine of equilibrium and balance is a fundamental qabalistical idea.
30. The “Book of Concealed Mystery ’’goes on to state that this “ Equilibrium hangeth in that region which is negatively existent.” What is negative existence ? What is positive existence ? The distinction between these two is another fundamental idea. To define negative existence clearly is impossible, for when it is distinctly defined it ceases to be negative existence; it is then negative existence passing into static condition. Therefore wisely have the Qabalists shut out from mortal comprehension the primal AIN, Ain , the negatively existent One, and the AIN SYP, Ain Soph , the limitless Expansion ; while of even the AIN SYP AYR, Ain Soph Aui\ the illimitable Light, only a dim conception can be formed. Yet, if we think deeply, we shall see that such must be the primal forms of the unknowable and nameless One, whom we, in the more manifest form speak of as God. He is the Absolute. But how define the Absolute ? Even as we define it, it slips from our grasp, for it ceases when defined to be the Absolute. Shall we then say that the Negative, the Limitless, the Absolute are, logically speaking, absurd, since they are ideas which our reason
INTRODUCTION,
?7 cannot define ? No ; for could we define them, we should make them, so to speak, contained by our reason, and therefore not superior to it ; for a subject to be capable of definition it is requisite that certain limits should be assignable to it. How then can we limit the Illimitable ?