Each issue of the Rosicrucian Digest provides members and

all interested readers with a compendium of materials

regarding the ongoing flow of the Rosicrucian Timeline.
The articles, historical excerpts, art, and literature included
in this Digest span the ages, and are not only interesting in
themselves, but also seek to provide a lasting reference
shelf to stimulate continuing study of all of those factors
which make up Rosicrucian history and thought. Therefore,
we present classical background, historical development,
and modern reflections on each of our subjects, using the

•
many forms of primary sources, reflective commentaries,
the arts, creative fiction, and poetry.

This magazine is dedicated to all the women and men

throughout the ages who have contributed to and

•
perpetuated the wisdom of the Rosicrucian,
Western esoteric, Tradition.

•
May we ever be worthy of the light with which
we have been entrusted.

In this issue, we explore the tradition received from Kabbalah,

from its ancient beginnings
to its practical application in the present day.

Rosicrucian
Digest
No. 2
2012
Page ii
 No. 2 - 2012 Vol. 90 - No. 2

Peter Kingsley, Ph.D. “Paths of the Ancient Sages: A Pythagorean History”

Kabbalah: A Brief Overview 2
Giulia Minicuci and Mary Jones, S.R.C.Joshua“Pythagoras the Teacher: From Samos to
Maggid, Ph.D., FRC
Metapontum”
Official Magazine of the Introduction to the Sefer Yetzirah 8
Worldwide Aryeh Kaplan
Rosicrucian Order
Sepher Yetzirah 11

The Legend of the Lost Word 17

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Page 1
 Kabbalah:
A Brief Overview
Joshua Maggid, Ph.D., FRC

traditional Jewish Kabbalah out of their

T
here are strong connections with
Kabbalah in Rosicrucianism and religious context and presents them as
Martinism, and Kabbalah remains a collection of practical techniques for
an important aspect of the teachings of inding happiness, fulillment, prosperity,
the Rosicrucian Order, AMORC and the relationships, etc.
Traditional Martinist Order. In this article, Another common way of classifying
Joshua Maggid, a longtime Rosicrucian and diferent types of Kabbalah is according to
Martinist who has studied Kabbalah for many the kinds of activities involved.
years, presents a brief overview of Kabbalah,
including Jewish, Christian, and Hermetic “heoretical Kabbalah” or “heosophical
Kabbalah. Kabbalah” includes a system of
metaphysics, a description of the inner
For those beginning to learn about it, workings of Divinity and how it interacts
Kabbalah can be diicult and confusing. with the material world, and methods of
Diferent books say diferent things. Any deriving esoteric interpretations of the
two books on Kabbalah may address Holy Scriptures.3
completely diferent topics, or they “Meditative Kabbalah” consists of a
may provide conlicting deinitions and wide variety of practices aimed at attaining
interpretations of the same material. In higher states of consciousness, exploring the
addition, authors use diferent English spiritual realm, encountering the Divine,
spellings for the same Hebrew terms. and receiving new spiritual insights.4 his
One reason for this is that there are is also referred to as “Mystical Kabbalah”
several diferent systems or traditions and “Prophetic Kabbalah.”
that all refer to themselves as “Kabbalah.” “Practical Kabbalah” refers to theurgy
here is Jewish Kabbalah, Christian and magic, attempting to inluence the
Kabbalah, and Hermetic Kabbalah.1 Divine Realm and produce practical
Christian and Hermetic Kabbalah borrow efects in the material world. To some
concepts, terms, and techniques from extent, however, these distinctions can be
Jewish Kabbalah, but they may use them somewhat arbitrary. Some modern authors
diferently, and they incorporate elements in the Hermetic or Magical tradition
from other traditions. Even within see magic more as a system of spiritual
traditional Jewish Kabbalah, because it development rather than an exercise of
has existed over many centuries and in personal power.5
diferent parts of the world, there have
developed a variety of diferent systems, Jewish Kabbalah
Rosicrucian schools, and methods.
2
In recent years, Some authors apply the word
Digest there has also appeared a kind of “New “Kabbalah” to all of Jewish mysticism,
No. 2 Age Kabbalah,” which takes elements of going back thousands of years, including
2012
Page 2
the Merkavah tradition and even the of the Zohar were irst circulated in Spain
Biblical prophets. Others reserve the term by Rabbi Moshe de Leon in the 1290s. He
“Kabbalah” for the speciic form of Jewish claimed that he found them, and that they
mysticism that began around the twelfth were written by Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai
and thirteenth centuries CE in southern in the second century CE. Academic
France and in Spain. hat was when the scholars generally believe that the Zohar
word “Kabbalah” was irst used to refer to was actually written by de Leon himself,
these writings and activities. or possibly by a group with which he was
Merkavah Mysticism (he Work of associated. It may have incorporated or
the Chariot) is sometimes classiied as expanded upon earlier oral traditions.
pre-Kabbalistic or as Early Kabbalah. Its Mostly written in a form of Aramaic,
dates are usually given as starting around much of the Zohar is extremely arcane and
the second century BCE and continuing notoriously diicult to understand.
for about a thousand years. hese mystics
would meditate and send their souls
upward, proceeding through a series of
seven holy palaces or chambers. Each
chamber provides a diferent spiritual
experience. hey hoped to eventually
reach the seventh and highest chamber
and receive a divine vision like the one
described by the prophet Ezekiel [1:1-28].
he Sefer Yetzirah6 (he Book of
Formation) is often called the oldest
Kabbalistic text.7 It describes in detail
how God used the letters of the Hebrew
Alphabet to create everything in the
universe. When properly interpreted, it
can also be read as a meditation manual
that describes a number of meditation
techniques using the Hebrew letters.
Traditionally attributed to the Biblical Statue of Moshe de Leon in Guadalajara, Spain.
patriarch Abraham, the origin of the Sefer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshe_de_leon
Yetzirah is unknown, but some date it to
around the second or third century CE. In the sixteenth century, the city of
he Sefer ha Zohar8 (he Book of Safed (Tzfat), in what is now Israel, was a
Splendor) is generally acknowledged to be major center of the lourishing of Kabbalah.
the most important Kabbalistic writing. Many important igures emerged in Safed
Not a single book, but a collection at that time, but the most inluential igure
of books, the Zohar contains esoteric for Kabbalah was Rabbi Isaac Luria (1534-
interpretations of the Holy Scriptures and 1572), often referred to as “the Ari” or
descriptions of the inner workings of the “the Arizal.” He provided a new approach
Divine Realm. Much of it is in the form of to understanding and interpreting the
stories about Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and Zohar, and he constructed a very detailed
his companions, traveling around the Holy description of the creation of the universe,
Land and discussing the hidden meanings the divine emanations, and the process of
of the scriptures. Manuscripts of portions reincarnation.9

Page 3
 During the European Enlightenment Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
of the eighteenth century, science and (1463-1494) had books on Kabbalah
rationality came to the fore, and interest translated from Hebrew into Latin, and
in mysticism diminished. In Judaism, he also wrote books on Kabbalah. He
the failure of the messianic Sabbatean argued that the Catholic Church should
movement in the seventeenth century incorporate Kabbalah and magic into
had discredited Kabbalah in the eyes of Christian theology. Pico believed that, by
many, and mysticism generally lost its employing Kabbalistic methods of esoteric
appeal. While Kabbalah was attacked interpretation, he could use the Hebrew
and suppressed by the dominant forces, Scriptures to prove the truth of Christian
a form of Kabbalah was perpetuated by teachings such as the divinity of Jesus
the Hassidic movement starting in the and the doctrine of the Trinity. One of
eighteenth century in Eastern Europe. his famous “Nine Hundred heses” was:
Hassidism conveyed Kabbalah in a “here is no science that assures us more
somewhat popularized form that allowed of the divinity of Christ than magic and
for encountering the Divine in nature Cabala.”1 1
and everyday life rather than exclusively
through scriptural study and complex
meditative techniques.
Gershom Scholem (1897-1982) was
a Jewish philosopher and historian who
founded the modern academic study of
Kabbalah. Born and raised in Germany,
he later emigrated to what is now Israel,
where he became the irst Professor of
Jewish Mysticism at the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem. Scholem, and the students
he trained and inluenced, helped to make
Kabbalah widely available to the lay public.

Christian Kabbalah

In the ifteenth through seventeenth

centuries, during the European
Renaissance, Kabbalistic writings were
translated from Hebrew into Latin and Statue of Giordano Bruno in the Campo dei Fiori in
became widely available to Christian Rome, where he was burned at the stake in 1600.
http://www.glebedigital.co.uk/blog/?p=999
scholars. Kabbalistic concepts and
methods were adopted by some Christian Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522), a
theologians, giving rise to what is Christian scholar who studied Greek and
called Christian Kabbalah.1 0 Christian Hebrew, was inluenced by the work of
Kabbalists also assimilated aspects of the Pico della Mirandola. He wrote books
Hermetic and Platonic writings, which in Latin on Kabbalah1 2 and argued that
were also translated into Latin during this Kabbalah should be accepted by the
period, associating Christian Kabbalah Church because it proved the truth of
Rosicrucian with Hermetic magic and Neoplatonist Christian teachings and could be used to
Digest
No. 2 theurgy. convert Jews to Catholicism.
2012
Page 4
 Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Hermetic Kabbalah
Nettesheim (1486-1535) drew extensively In the seventeenth and eighteenth
from Kabbalah throughout his hree Books centuries, as it developed in underground
of Occult Philosophy,1 3 a very inluential esoteric movements, Christian Kabbalah
compendium of Western occultism and gradually incorporated more pagan
magic. elements and alchemical symbolism.
Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) was a By the late nineteenth century, the
Dominican friar who studied the works term “Hermetic Kabbalah” was used to
of Pico, Reuchlin, and Agrippa, and wrote distinguish it from the Christian Kabbalah
several books himself.1 4 He traveled around of the Renaissance.
Europe trying to ind a royal patron who Alphonse Louis Constant, writing
would support him in his quest to have the under the name of Eliphas Levi (1810-
Church adopt Kabbalah and magic. Bruno 1875), connected the cards of the Tarot
did not ind the support he sought, and he deck with the letters of the Hebrew
made the mistake of returning to Rome, Alphabet, the ten Seirot of the Kabbalistic
where he was arrested by the Inquisition Tree of Life, and the Sefer Yetzirah.1 9
and burned at the stake for heresy in 1600. One of the most familiar names from
that era is Dr. Gerard Encausse, known
Christian Knorr von Rosenroth (1636- as Papus (1868-1916). He was involved
1689) translated parts of the Zohar and in several esoteric societies and was a co-
other Kabbalistic works from Hebrew into founder of the Ordre Martiniste (Martinist
Latin in a compendium called Kabbala Order) and the Kabbalistic Order of the
Denudata (he Kabbalah Unveiled). Rose-Croix, whose membership was
At irst, Christian Kabbalah was a limited to Martinists who had attained
public movement seeking recognition the S.I. degree, and was structured
by the Catholic Church. he Church around three degrees named Bachelor
never accepted it, and inally suppressed of Kabbalah, Master of Kabbalah, and
it, but it was perpetuated in esoteric Doctor of Kabbalah.2 0 His books include
movements including Rosicrucianism,1 5 he Qabalah: Secret Tradition of the West.2 1
Freemasonry,1 6 and Martinism. he best known and most inluential
In her history of he Occult Philosophy in of the hermetic occult societies was the
the Elizabethan Age, Frances Yates says that Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn,
“‘Christian Cabala’ and ‘Rosicrucianism’ which was founded in England in the
may be synonymous.”1 7 She goes on to late 1800s. Its focus was Ceremonial
say that Magic, and it included considerable
he philosophy of Christian Kabbalistic material along with other
Cabala as expressed by Giorgi and mystical and magical traditions.2 2 S. L.
Agrippa is very close to the so-called MacGregor Mathers, who was one of the
Rosicrucian philosophy, as expressed order’s founders, translated Knorr von
in the Rosicrucian manifestos and Rosenroth’s Kabbalah Unveiled from Latin
by Robert Fludd . . . We can now into English.2 3
better understand the history of Dion Fortune (1890-1946) was a
Rosicrucianism by linking it with the member of several esoteric and occult
history of Christian Cabala as carried groups, and later formed her own
into the Elizabethan age.1 8 organization, called “he Fraternity of the
Inner Light” (later renamed “he Society
of the Inner Light”). Her most famous and
inluential book is he Mystical Qabalah.2 4
Page 5
 Conclusions
Because of the wide variety of ideas and here are strong connections
practices that have been included under with Kabbalah in Rosicrucianism and
the term “Kabbalah,” when reading books Martinism, and Kabbalah remains an
on this topic, it can be very helpful to important aspect of the teachings of the
identify the speciic tradition and branch Rosicrucian Order, AMORC and the
of Kabbalah that the author is presenting. Traditional Martinist Order.

ENDNOTES
1. In books on Christian Kabbalah, “Kabbalah” is 10. Joseph Dan, ed., he Christian Kabbalah: Jewish
generally spelled with a “C” (e.g., Cabala), probably Mystical Books & heir Christian Interpreters
because the original sources were written in Latin. (Cambridge: Harvard College Library, 1997).
Hermetic Kabbalah books tend to spell it with 11. S. A. Farmer, trans., Syncretism in the West: Pico’s 900
an initial “Q” (e.g., Qabalah). Books on Jewish heses (1486) (Tempe: Medieval & Renaissance Texts
Kabbalah most often use the initial letter “K,” & Studies, 2008), 497.
possibly because of early books written in German. 12. Johann Reuchlin, On the Art of the Kabbalah: De
While these conventions are not always observed, an Arte Cabalistica, trans. Martin and Sarah Goodman
author’s spelling can often be a clue to which system (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993).
the book is presenting. For the sake of simplicity, 13. Henry Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim, hree
except for direct quotations from other sources, only Books of Occult Philosophy, trans. James Freake, ed.
the spelling “Kabbalah” is used in this article. & annotated by Donald Tyson (St. Paul: Llewellyn
2. For a general survey, see Perle Epstein, Kabbalah: he Publications, 2000).
Way of the Jewish Mystic (Boston: Shambhala, 2001). 14. Frances A. Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic
For a brief and accessible historical synopsis, see the Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
DVD, Decoding the Past: Secrets of Kabbalah (he 1991).
History Channel, 2006). 15. Frances A. Yates, he Occult Philosophy in the
3. E.g., Kim Zetter, Simple Kabbalah (Conari Press, Elizabethan Age (London: Routledge, 2001), 197-
2000; distributed by Red Wheel/Weiser, York Beach, 205.
ME). 16. Frances A. Yates, he Rosicrucian Enlightenment
4. E.g., Aryeh Kaplan, Meditation and Kabbalah (York (London: Routledge, 2002), 262-277.
Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, 1982). 17. Yates, Occult Philosophy, 105.
5. E.g., Dion Fortune, he Mystical Qabalah (York 18. Ibid., 195.
Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, 1984). 19. Eliphas Levi, he Book of Splendours: he Inner
6. Isidor Kalisch, trans., Sepher Yezirah: A Book on Mysteries of Qabalism (York Beach, ME: Samuel
Creation (San Jose: Rosicrucian Order, AMORC, Weiser, 1984), 130-131.
2002). Aryeh Kaplan, trans., Sefer Yetzirah: he Book 20. Christian Rebisse, Rosicrucian History and Mysteries
of Creation, rev. ed. (York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, (San Jose: Grand Lodge of the English Language
1997). Jurisdiction, AMORC, 2005), 138.
7. E.g., Kaplan, Sefer Yetzirah, ix. 21. Papus, he Qabalah: Secret Tradition of the West, trans.
8. Arthur Green, A Guide to the Zohar (Stanford: W. N. Schors (York Beach, ME: Red Wheel/Weiser,
Stanford University Press, 2004). Daniel C. Matt, 2000).
trans., he Zohar: Pritzker Edition, multiple vols. 22. Israel Regardie, he Golden Dawn (Woodbury, MN:
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004- ). Llewellyn Publications, 1989).
9. Hayyim Vital, he Tree of Life: Chayyim Vital’s 23. S. L. MacGregor Mathers, trans., he Kabbalah
Rosicrucian Introduction to the Kabbalah of Isaac Luria. Volume Unveiled (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2006).
Digest I: he Palace of Adam Kadmon, trans. Donald 24. See note 5.
No. 2 Wilder Menzi and Zwe Padeh (New York: Arizal
2012 Publications, 2008).
Page 6
Scala Philosophorum Cabalistica Magia. From the Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians of the 16th and 17th Centuries,
hand colored by H. Spencer Lewis.

Page 7
 Introduction to the
Sefer Yetzirah
Aryeh Kaplan
As a graduate student, Aryeh Kaplan was described in a scientiic Who’s Who as the most
promising young physicist in America. He later devoted himself to writing and teaching of the
Torah. During his short lifetime (he died suddenly in 1983 at the age of forty-eight), Rabbi
Kaplan wrote more than ifty books. In the text that follows, Rabbi Kaplan introduces us to
the extraordinary Kabbalistic work, the Sefer Yetzirah.
Material excerpted from the book SEFER YETZIRAH: THE BOOK OF CREATION © 1997 by he
Estate of Aryeh Kaplan. Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC, Newburyport, MA and San Francisco, CA. Orders may
be placed at www.redwheelweiser.com or by calling 800.423.7087.

T
he Sefer Yetzirah is without question form is based largely on the Zohar, is
the oldest and most mysterious concerned mostly with the dynamics of
of all Kabbalistic texts. The first the spiritual domain, especially the worlds
commentaries on this book were written in of the Seirot, souls, and angels. his
the tenth century, and the text itself is quoted branch of Kabbalah reached its zenith in
as early as the sixth. References to the work the writings of the Safed school in the
appear in the first century, while traditions sixteenth century, and the vast majority of
regarding its use attest to its existence even in published texts belong in this category.
Biblical times. So ancient is this book that its Meditative Kabbalah deals with the
origins are no longer accessible to historians. use of divine names, letter permutations,
We are totally dependent on traditions with and similar methods to reach higher states
regard to its authorship. of consciousness, and as such, comprises a
Equally mysterious is the meaning kind of yoga. Most of the main texts have
of this book. If the author meant to be never been published, but remain scattered
obscure, he was eminently successful. It in manuscripts in the great libraries and
is only through the most careful analysis, museums. Some of these methods enjoyed
studying every word with its parallels in a brief renaissance in the mid 1700s with
Biblical and Talmudic literature, that its the rise of the Hasidic movement, but
haze of obscurity begins to be penetrated. within a half century they were once again
here have been many interpretations largely forgotten.
of the Sefer Yetzirah. he earliest he third category of Kabbalah—
commentators tried to interpret it as a the magical—is closely related to the
philosophical treatise, but their eforts meditative. It consists of various signs,
shed more light on their own systems than incantations, and divine names, through
on the text. he same is true of eforts to which one can inluence or alter natural
it it into the systems of the Zohar or later events. Many of the techniques closely
Kabbalists. Eforts to view it as a book resemble meditative methods, and their
on grammar or phonetics are even more success may depend on their ability to
unsuccessful. induce mental states where telekinetic
In general, the Kabbalah is divided or spiritual power can efectively be
into three categories, the theoretical, channeled. As with the second category,
Rosicrucian
Digest the meditative, and the magical.1 he the most important texts have never been
No. 2 theoretical Kabbalah, which in its present printed, although some fragments have
2012
Page 8
been published. One of the best examples wisdom, and be wise with understanding.”
of these is the book Raziel. Rather than have the text oscillate between
Careful study indicates that Sefer the third person and the imperative, it
Yetzirah is a meditative text, with strong would certainly be more logical to read
magical overtones. his position is it all in the imperative. he Sefer Yetzirah
supported by the earliest Talmudic thus becomes an instruction manual for a
traditions, which indicate that it could be very special type of meditation…
used to create living creatures. Especially What we therefore have in Sefer Yetzirah
signiicant are the many reports and appears to be an instructional manual,
legends in which the Sefer Yetzirah is describing certain meditative exercises.
used to create a Golem, a sort of mystical here is some evidence that these exercises
android. he methods of the Sefer Yetzirah were meant to strengthen the initiate’s
appear to involve meditation; and it concentration, and were particularly
is highly possible that it was originally helpful in the development of telekinetic
written as a meditative manual. A major and telepathic powers. It was with these
twelfth century philosopher thus states powers that one would then be able to
that it does not contain philosophy, but perform feats that outwardly appeared
divine mystery.2 his comes across very to be magical. his is supported by the
clearly in the commentary of one of the Talmudical references, which appear to
greatest Kabbalists, Isaac the Blind (1160- compare the use of Sefer Yetzirah to a kind
1236), who stresses the meditative aspects of white magic.5 An important thirteenth
of the text. century commentator writes that students
It is also particularly evident in a very of Sefer Yetzirah were given a manuscript of
ancient manuscript of the Sefer Yetzirah, the book Raziel, a magical text containing
dating from the tenth century or earlier. seals, magical igures, divine names, and
he introductory colophon states, “his incantations.6
is the book of the Letters of Abraham our
father, which is called Sefer Yetzirah, and he Text
when one gazes (tzafah) into it, there is he Sefer Yetzirah is a very small and
no limit to his wisdom.”3 …he Hebrew concise book. In its Short Version, it is
word tzafah does not denote mere physical only some 1,300 words long, while the
gazing, but mystical meditative insight. Long Version contains approximately
his very early source would therefore 2,500 words. he Gra Version contains
support the position that Sefer Yetzirah was around 1,800 words. So short is the text,
meant to be used as a meditative text. that one of the earliest fragments appears
he commentaries which treat Sefer to have the entire book written on a single
Yetzirah as a theoretical text read much page.7 here is speculation that the original
of it in the third person: “He combined,” source may have contained as few as 240
“He formed,” and the like. According to words.8
this reading, the text is referring to God’s he present text contains six chapters,
creation. In many cases, however, the and in some editions, these are said to
grammatical form more closely resembles parallel the six orders of the Mishnah.9
the imperative.4 he author is telling the Some ancient sources, however, state that
reader to “combine” and “form” as if he was the book contains ive chapters, and it
actually giving instructions. In many other seems likely that the present ifth and sixth
cases, the text is unambiguously instructive, chapters were combined as one in these
as in such passages as, “if your heart runs, texts.10 he earliest commentator, Saadia
return to the place,” and, “understand with Gaon, in a somewhat diferent version,
Page 9
 divides the book into eight chapters.11 Kabbalistic literature, with the exception
he text is presented dogmatically, of the Bahir.13 Of all the chapters, this one
without substantiation or explanation. seems the most obscure, and it is diicult
In the irst chapter in particular, it is to decide if its emphasis is theoretical or
solemn and sonorous, reading like blank meditative.
verse poetry. Very few Biblical passages his chapter concludes with a stanza
are quoted, and with the exception linking the Sefer Yetzirah to Abraham. It
of Abraham, no name or authority is is this quote that serves as a source to the
mentioned. tradition that the book was authored by
he book seems to be divided into four the Patriarch.
basic parts. he irst chapter introduces ENDNOTES
the Seirot, speaking of them at length. 1. his is discussed at length in my Meditation and
After this, however, there is no mention Kabbalah, and Meditation and the Bible (York Beach,
ME: Samuel Weiser).
whatsoever regarding the Seirot in 2. Kuzari 4:27.
subsequent chapters. his had led to some 3. Barceloni, p. 100. his is in the British Museum,
speculation that the Sefer Yetzirah might Ms. 600. See M. Marguliot, Catalogue of Hebrew and
Samaritan Manuscripts in the British Museum, Vol. 2,
actually be a combination of two (or more) p. 197. Also in the Vatican, Ms. 299, and the British
earlier texts. Museum, Ms. 752. Another account also states
he second chapter consists of a that Rava and Ray Zeira gazed (tzafah) in the Sefer
Yetzirah for three years (Barceloni, p. 268).
general discussion about the letters of 4. hus, in a number of places in the text, the word Tzar
the alphabet. It clearly appears to be is used instead of Yatzar. his is more easily read in
introducing their use in a meditative the imperative than in the third person past.
5. Sanhedrin 67b, Barceloni, loc. cit. Also see Shulchan
context. Also introduced in this chapter Arukh, Yoreh Deah 179:15, Sifsey Cohen 179:18;
are the ive phonetic families and the 231 Tshuvot Radbaz 3:405.
Gates. Again, neither the phonetic families 6. Yehudah ben Nissim ibn Malka, Commentary on Sefer
Yetzirah (Oxford, Ms. 1536), quoted in George Vajda,
nor the Gates are ever again mentioned in Juda ben Nissim ibn Malka, philosophe juif marocain,
the text. (Paris, 1954), p. 171; Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah
Chapters three to ive discuss the three and its Symbolism, (New York, 1969), p. 177. here
is some question as to whether this Raziel is the
divisions of the letters, “mothers, doubles, same as the published edition. Abraham Abulaia
and elementals.” hese are related to the also mentions having studied this book, see Sheva
“universe, soul, and year,” presenting a Netivot HaChakhmah, in A. Jellinek, Philosophie und
Kabbalah, (Leipzig, 1854), p. 21.
fairly detailed astrological system. In these 7. A.M. Habermann, Sinai 10:3b (1974) with regard to
chapters, the entire thrust of the book is Geniza fragment Taylor-Schechter 32:5. his is the
changed, and they contain virtually no hint Saadia Version, which is the longest.
8. Yisrael Weinstock, “LeBirur HaNusach shel Sefer
whatsoever of its meditative aspects. his, Yetzirah,” Temirin 1:20, note 41, 1:16, note 31.
however, can be explained by a principle 9. See Ne’edar BaKodesh, Shaarey Tzion.
found in many later Kabbalistic texts. In 10. Barceloni, p. 105. In the Pistoris translation,
chapters ive and six are combined, as well as in
order to focus spiritual and mental powers, many manuscripts. See Weinstock, loc. cit., note 33.
one must take into account the time and he divisions in Donash and Chakamoni were put
astrological environment.12 in by the printer, and do not exist in the original
manuscripts.
he sixth chapter again does not 11. Saadia Gaon, Commentary on Sefer Yetzirah, translated
appear to have a clear connection to the into Hebrew by Yosef Kapach (Jerusalem, 1972), p.
earlier parts of the book, although in the 34.
12. See Introduction to Raziel; Shimushey Tehillim
Long Version, it is presented almost as in Tshuvot Rashba 413; R. Moshe Cordevero,
a commentary. Here, for the irst time, Commentary on Zohar Shir HaShirim (Jerusalem,
Rosicrucian are introduced the concepts of the “axis, Ms. 4 74), in G. Scholem, Kitvey Yad BaKabbalah, p.
Digest 233-4.
No. 2 cycle, and heart,” ideas which are not 13. See Bahir, Ed. Reuven Margolios (Jerusalem 1951),
2012 discussed any place else in Hebraic or Nos. 95, 101, 106.
Page 10
 Sepher Yetzirah
he Long Version
Translation from a Rosicrucian Manuscript

Chapter 1
1-1. By thirty-two mystical Paths has been a depth of West, a depth of North and a
established the Wisdom of YHVH Sabaoth, depth of South. he sole God, the faithful
God of Israel, living Elohim, almighty God, King, rules over all from His holy dwelling,
high and supreme, living for all eternity. forever and ever.
His name is holy. He created His universe
by three measures (number, text, and 1-7. Ten sephiroth arose from the Void;
commentary), ten sephiroth in the Void, and their appearance was like an endless lash of
twenty-two fundamental letters. lightning. he Word of God travels through
them constantly, and when He speaks such
1-2. he sephiroth are ten in number, like a whirlwind, they bow before His hrone.
the ten ingers, ive opposite ive. hey
form the sole Covenant of the central Axis. 1-8. Ten sephiroth arose from the Void, as
well as twenty-two fundamental letters: three
1-3. Ten sephiroth arose from the Void: ten Mothers, seven Doubles (Double Letters),
and not nine, ten and not eleven. Discern them and twelve Simples (Simple Letters), each
with Wisdom and Intelligence. Examine them, containing the Breath of God.
interrogate them. Make each thing correspond
to their essence. heir number is ten and they 1-9. Ten sephiroth arose from the Void by the
are ininite. Utterance of Elohim. His throne is eternally
established. Blessed be His name, He who
1-4. Ten sephiroth arose from the Void: perpetually enlivens the worlds, forever and
Restrain your heart so as not to think of ever, with His Voice, Breath, and Word.
them; restrain your mouth so as not to speak
of them. And if your heart throbs, recall 1-10. With the Wind coming from the
what is written: “And the Holy creatures ran Breath, God carved and sculpted the four
and returned.” hus shall the Covenant be directions of the Heavens: East and West,
concluded. North and South. he Divine Breath is in
each of them.
1-5. Ten sephiroth arose from the Void: their
end resides in their beginning and their 1-11. With the Waters coming from the
beginning in their end, like a lame in a Breath, God carved and sculpted the Chaos
burning coal. Learn, meditate, and realize and Void from clay and mud. He traced
that God is unique, that the Creator has no them as a kind of garden and sculpted
peer. Facing the One, what is there to count? them like a wall. Chaos is a blue line which
encircles the world. he void consists of
1-6. Ten sephiroth arose from the Void: spongy rocks, buried in the abyss from
ten in number, they determine a depth of whence the Waters emanate.
Beginning and a depth of End; a depth of
Good and a depth of Evil; a depth of High 1-12. With the Fire coming from the Waters,
and a depth of Low; a depth of East and God carved and sculpted the hrone of
Page 11
 His glory, and conided it to the Seraphim, For nothing is superior in goodness than
Ophanim, and Angels. Over these three delight (oneg) and nothing is worse in evil
angelic choirs He established his abode, thus than plague (nega).
it is written: “He has made His angels spirits,
His ministers a laming ire.” 2-3. Twenty-two fundamental letters were
carved by God, sculpted, weighed, and
1-13. God chose three letters from among combined. He changed them, formed with
the Simples and set them in His great name: them the soul of everything which was
YHV. With it, He sealed the six directions. formed and the soul of everything which will
He turned toward the Height and sealed it be formed.
with YHV. He turned toward the Depth and
sealed it with YVH. He turned toward the 2-4. God weighed and combined Aleph
Front and sealed the East with VYH. He with all the letters and all with Aleph, Beth
turned toward the Rear and sealed the West with all and all with Beth, and so on with
with VHY. He turned toward the Right each of them. hus, all the letters arose
and sealed the South with YVH. He turned from 231 Gates and emanated from one
toward the Left and sealed the North with Name.
HVY.
2-5. God formed the Primordial Substance
from Chaos and extracted being from
nonbeing. He hewed great Pillars from
imperceptible Being.
Chapter 2

2-1. Twenty-two fundamental letters (three

Mothers, seven Doubles, and twelve Simples)
have been engraved with the voice of God, Chapter 3
carved with His Breath, and reunited in ive
places: Aleph, Heth, He, Ayin; Gimel, Yod, 3-1. he hree Mothers, Aleph, Mem, and
Kaph, Qoph; Daleth, Teth, Lamed, Nun, Shin, rest on the scale of merit and on the
Tav; Zayin, Samekh, Shin, Resh, Tsade; scale of duty, and the Word balances them.
Beth, Vav, Mem, and Pe.
3-2. he hree Mothers form a great, and
Aleph, Heth, He, and Ayin are pronounced mystical secret, hidden, and sealed by six
with the base of the tongue and the throat. rings. From them emanates ire, water, and
Beth, Vav, Mem, and Pe are pronounced air. hey are also divided into male and
between the lips and with the tip of the female.
tongue. Gimel, Yod, Kaph, and Qoph are
pronounced with the back of the tongue. 3-3. he hree Mothers formed in the
Daleth, Teth, Lamed, Nun, and Tav are universe air, water, and ire. he heavens
pronounced with the tip of the tongue and were created from ire, Earth from water,
the throat. Zayin, Samekh, Shin, Resh, and and Breath from air which establishes the
Tsade are pronounced between the teeth, balance between the two.
with the tongue rounded and pushed
toward the outside. 3-4. he hree Mothers formed in the year
heat, cold, and mildness. Heat was created
Rosicrucian 2-2. Twenty-two fundamental letters were from ire, cold from water, and mildness
Digest joined together by God in a Circle of 231 from the air, which establishes the balance
No. 2 Gates, a Circle which sways to and fro. between the two.
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3-5. he hree Mothers formed in man the opposite of fecundity is sterility, the opposite
head, belly, and chest. he head was created of life is death, the opposite of domination is
from ire, the belly from water, and the dependence, the opposite of peace is war, the
chest from the air which establishes the opposite of beauty is ugliness.
balance between the two.
4-2. he Seven Doubles, not six, not eight,
3-6. he hree Mothers carved, sculpted, are similar to six sides and six directions,
and combined through God. And with and the Holy Temple is in the center,
them, He sealed the three Mothers in the supported by God.
Universe, three Mothers in the year, and
three Mothers in humans, male and female. 4-3. God carved, sculpted, exchanged,
weighed, and combined the seven double
3-7. God made the letter Aleph rule over letters, and formed with them seven
the air, crowned it, exchanged it with others, planets in the universe, seven days in the
and formed with it the air in the universe, year, and seven gates in humans.
moistness in the year, and the chest in
humans, male and female. 4-4. God made the letter Beth rule over
wisdom, crowned it, exchanged it with the
God made the letter Mem rule over water, others, and formed with it Saturn in the
crowned it, exchanged it with the others, universe, Shabbat in the year, and the mouth
and formed with it Earth in the universe, in humans, male and female.
coldness in the year, and the belly in
humans, male and female. 4-5. God made the letter Gimel rule over
wealth, crowned it, exchanged it with the
God made the letter Shin rule over ire, others, and formed with it Jupiter in the
crowned it, exchanged it with the others, and universe, the irst day in the year, and the
formed with it the heavens in the universe, right eye in humans, male and female.
heat in the year, and the head in humans,
male and female. 4-6. God made the letter Daleth rule over
fecundity, crowned it, exchanged it with
3-8. With Aleph, God formed the breath, the others, and formed with it Mars in the
air, mildness, the chest, and language which universe, the second day in the year, and
establishes the balance. With Mem, He the left eye in humans, male and female.
formed the waters, Earth, coldness, the
belly, and the scale of merit. With Shin, He 4-7. God made the letter Kaph rule over
formed ire, the heavens, heat, the head, and life, crowned it, exchanged it with the
the scale of duty. others, and formed with it the Sun in the
universe, the third day in the year, and the
right nostril in humans, male and female.

4-8. God make the letter Pe rule over

Chapter 4 domination, crowned it, exchanged it with
the others, and formed with it Venus in the
4-1. he Seven Doubles rest on life, peace, universe, the fourth day in the year, and the
wisdom, wealth, fecundity, beauty, and left nostril in humans, male and female.
domination. hey express themselves in
a double sense, a structure soft and hard, 4-9. God made the letter Resh rule over
strong and weak. he opposite of wisdom is peace, crowned it, exchanged it with the
folly, the opposite of wealth is poverty, the others, and formed with it Mercury in the
Page 13
 universe, the ifth day in the year, and the 5-3. God carved, sculpted, combined,
right ear in humans, male and female. weighed, and conveyed the twelve simple
letters, and He formed with them twelve
4-10. God made the letter Tav rule over constellations in the universe, twelve months
beauty, crowned it, exchanged it with the in the year, and twelve organs in humans,
others, and formed with it the Moon in male and female.
the universe, the sixth day in the year, and
the left ear in humans, male and female. 5-4. he Twelve Simples were distributed into
three allies, three enemies, three animators,
4-11. he seven planets of the universe are: and three destroyers. he three allies are the
Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, heart, ears, and eyes. he three enemies are
Moon. he seven days in the year are like the liver, gall bladder, and tongue. he three
the seven days of the week. he seven gates animators are the two nostrils and spleen.
in humans, male and female, are the two he three destroyers are the two oriices and
eyes, two ears, two nostrils, and the mouth. mouth. And God, the trusted King, rules
over all of them from His holy dwelling for
4-12. With Beth, God formed Saturn, all of eternity.
Shabbat, the mouth, life and death. With
Gimel, He formed Jupiter, the irst day, the 5-5. God made the letter He rule over
right eye, peace and war. With Daleth, He speaking, crowned it, combined it with each
formed Mars, the second day, the left eye, of the others, and formed with it Aries in the
wisdom and folly. With Kaph, He formed the universe, the month of Nisan in the year, and
Sun, the third day, the right nostril, wealth the right foot in humans, male and female.
and poverty. With Pe, He formed Venus, the
fourth day, the left nostril, fecundity and 5-6. God made the letter Vav rule over
sterility. With Resh, He formed Mercury, the thinking, crowned it, combined it with each
ifth day, the right ear, beauty and ugliness. of the others, and formed with it Taurus in
With Tav, He formed the Moon, the sixth the universe, the month of Iyar in the year,
day, the left ear, domination and servitude. and the right kidney in humans, male and
female.

5-7. God made the letter Zayin rule over

Chapter 5 motion, crowned it, combined it with each
of the others, and formed with it Gemini in
5-1. he twelve Simples rest on seeing, the universe, the month of Sivan in the year,
hearing, smelling, speaking, tasting, and the left foot in humans, male and female.
coition, motion, anger, laughing, thinking,
joy, and sleeping. 5-8. God made the letter Heth rule over
seeing, crowned it, combined it with each
5-2. he twelve Simples, not eleven, not of the others, and formed with it Cancer
thirteen, form the twelve diagonal limits in the universe, the month of Tamuz in the
between the six directions; the upper limit of year, and the right hand in humans, male
the East; the Northeast limit; the lower limit and female.
of the East; the upper limit of the South; the
Southeast limit; the lower limit of the South; 5-9. God made the letter Teth rule over
the upper limit of the West; the Southwest hearing, crowned it, combined it with each
Rosicrucian limit; the lower limit of the West; the upper of the others, and formed with it Leo in the
Digest limit of the North; the Northwest limit; and universe, the month of Ab in the year, and the
No. 2 the lower limit of the North. left kidney in humans, male and female.
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5-10. God made the letter Yod rule over 5-17. With He, God formed Aries, Nisan,
working, crowned it, combined it with each the right foot, sight and blindness. With
of the others, and formed with it Virgo in the Vav, God formed Taurus, Iyar, the right
universe, the month of Elul in the year, and kidney, hearing and deafness. With Zayin,
the left hand in humans, male and female. God formed Gemini, Sivan, the left foot,
smell and the absence of smell. With Heth,
5-11. God made the letter Lamed rule over God formed Cancer, Tamuz, the right
coition, crowned it, combined it with each hand, speech and silence. With Teth, God
of the others, and formed with it Libra in formed Leo, Ab, the left kidney, taste and
the universe, the month of Tishri in the the absence of taste. With Yod, God formed
year, and the gall bladder in humans, male Virgo, Elul, the left hand, action and inertia.
and female. With Lamed, God formed Libra, Tishri, the
gall bladder, coition and sterility. With Nun,
5-12. God made the letter Nun rule over God formed Scorpio, Marcheshvan, the
smell, crowned it, combined it with each of small intestine, motion and paralysis. With
the others, and formed with it Scorpio in the Samekh, God formed Sagittarius, Kislev,
universe, the month of Marcheshvan in the the stomach, serenity and anger. With
year, and the small intestine in humans, male Ayin, God formed Capricorn, Teveth, the
and female. liver, laughter and tears. With Tsade, God
formed Aquarius, Shevath, the esophagus,
5-13. God made the letter Samekh rule intelligence and stupidity. With Qoph, God
over sleeping, crowned it, combined it formed Pisces, Adar, the spleen, sleep and
with each of the others, and formed with insomnia.
it Sagittarius in the universe, the month
of Kislev in the year, and the stomach in
humans, male and female. Chapter 6

5-14. God made the letter Ayin rule over 6-1. hree Mothers; seven Doubles; twelve
anger, crowned it, combined it with each of Simples. hese are the twenty-two letters by
the others, and formed with it Capricorn which Sabaoth, the God of Israel, Elohim
in the universe, the month of Teveth in the living and supreme, living for eternity, whose
year, and the liver in humans, male and Name is holy, formed All that was, is, and
female. shall be.

5-15. God made the letter Tsade rule over 6-2. here are twelve letters below, seven
tasting, crowned it, combined it with each letters above, and three letters upon the
of the others, and formed with it Aquarius seven. God established His dwelling above
in the universe, the month of Shevath in the three, but He has no second and governs
the year, and the esophagus in humans, alone in His universe, because He is One,
male and female. and His name is One.
6-3. here are three Mothers and their
5-16. God made the letter Qoph rule ofspring, seven subjects and their host, and
over laughing, crowned it, combined it twelve diagonal limits. he faithful witnesses
with each of the others, and formed with of this are the universe, year, and humanity.
it Pisces in the universe, the month of
Adar in the year, and spleen in man, male 6-4. he sephiroth in the universe are ten
and female. and twelve: ire, air, water, seven planets,

Page 15
 and twelve constellations. he sephiroth in 6-10. he seven Doubles have for
the year are ten and twelve: cold, hot, mild, correspondences: Saturn, Shabbat, and
seven days, and twelve months. mouth. Jupiter, irst day, and right eye.
Mars, second day, and left eye. Sun, third
6-5. God set a rule of ten, three, seven, and day, and right nostril. Venus, fourth day, and
twelve in the Tali, Cycle, and Heart. he Tali left nostril. Mercury, ifth day, and right ear.
in the universe is like a ruler on the human Moon, sixth day, and left ear.
throne, the Cycle in the year is like a ruler
in his or her empire, and the Heart is like a 6-11. he twelve Simples have for
ruler in war. correspondences: Aries, Nisan, right foot,
sight, and blindness. Taurus, Iyar, right
6-6. As a general rule, certain principles kidney, hearing, and deafness. Gemini, Sivan,
combine with others, are exchanged with left foot, smell, and absence of smell. Cancer,
others, and are opposed to others. If certain Tamuz, right hand, speech, and silence.
ones exist, others do not, and if some others Leo, Ab, left kidney, taste, and absence of
exist, certain ones do not. But all are linked taste. Virgo, Elul, left hand, action, and
with the Tali, Cycle, and Heart. inertia. Libra, Tishri, gall bladder, coition,
and sterility. Scorpio, Marcheshvan, small
6-7. God has made one correspond to
intestine, motion, and paralysis. Sagitarrius,
the other, and the other to the one: good
Kislev, stomach, serenity, and anger.
is opposed to evil, and evil is opposed to
Capricorn, Teveth, liver, laughter, and tears.
good. Good proceeds from good, and evil
Aquarius, Shevath, esophagus, intelligence,
proceeds from evil. Good discerns evil, and
and stupidity. Pisces, Adar, spleen, sleep, and
evil discerns good. Good is preserved for
insomnia.
the good, and evil is preserved for the evil.
6-12. he three enemies are the tongue, liver,
6-8. When Abraham, our blessed father,
and gall bladder. he three allies are the eyes,
came, he looked, lived, probed, understood,
ears, and heart. he three animators are the
carved, sculpted, exchanged, formed,
teeth, nose, and spleen. he three destroyers
thought, and became fruitful. he Lord of
are the two lower oriices and mouth.
All, may His name be blessed for eternity,
revealed Himself to him, kissed him on 6-13. hree things are good for the ear: a
the head, and called him: “Abraham, My blessing, glad tidings, praise. hree things
beloved.” He made a covenant with him are bad for the eye: adultery, the evil eye, and
and his descendants, and placed His glory a roving eye. hree things are good for the
on him. He made a pact between the ten eye: humility, the appreciative eye, and true
ingers of his hands, attached the twenty-two sight. hree things are bad for the tongue:
letters on his tongue, and revealed to him defamation, denunciation, and hypocrisy.
their mystery. He plunged them into water, hree things are good for the tongue: silence,
burned them by ire, tossed them about controlling the tongue, and truth.
with the breath, inlamed them by the seven
planets, and guided them toward the twelve
constellations.

6-9. he three Mothers have for

correspondences: heaven, ire, heat, and
Rosicrucian head. Air, breath, mild, and chest. Earth,
Digest
No. 2 water, cold, and belly.
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 The Legend of the Lost Word
Ralph M. Lewis, FRC
Ralph Maxwell Lewis served as the Imperator of the Rosicrucian Order, AMORC for forty-
eight years, from 1939 to 1987. In this article, he explores the power of the word, in various
traditions, including Kabbalah.

T
HE LEGEND of a Lost Word—of
a key to creation by means of which
all reality was set into motion—is
thousands of years old. Part of the legend is
allegorical, and part of it is due to a primitive
conception of the efficacy of the spoken
word as an energy by which humans are
motivated. A similar power, therefore, is
attributed to a First Cause, or deity. The
first reference to a teleological or mental
cause of creation and the relating of it to the
spoken word goes back to the Memphite
period of Egypt, about 4000 BCE. The chief
Memphite deity was Ptah, who headed a
pantheon of lesser deities. At first the priests
of the Memphite mystery school proclaimed
that Ptah was the patron god of the artisans
and craftspeople of Egypt.
Centuries later the priests developed a Ralph Maxwell Lewis.
more profound metaphysical conception [Ptah] thinks and while he commands
with respect to Ptah. He then became the everything that he desires.”
artisan, the creator of the universe. In their
he mouth of Ptah “which pronounced
doctrines the priesthood then claimed that
the names of all things....”
Ptah created the universe by thought. To
be more explicit, the thoughts, the ideas Egyptologists inform us that the
of Ptah, were transformed into a spoken ancient Egyptians used the word heart to
word by him, and by means of that word mean mind or intelligence. Also, reference
the thought was objectiied, that is, became to the tongue alludes to the spoken
reality. word, the authoritative word by which
he following quotation is from an all thoughts became objectiied—made
ancient inscription by the Ptah priesthood: reality.
“It came to pass that heart and We can presume that somewhere
tongue gained power over every in these ancient mysteries there were
member, teaching that he [Ptah] was syllables, sounds, mantras which were
[in the form of the heart] in every heart thought to have special universal powers
and [in the form of the tongue] in every for the creation of worldly things.
mouth, of all deities, all people, all We are, of course, familiar with the
cattle, or reptiles, [all] living, while he statement in the Bible, John I. “In the
Page 17
 beginning was the Word, and the Word Let us quote a few examples from the
was with God, and the Word was God.” Sepher Yezirah. In Chapter 1, Section 8, we
Was this statement in the New Testament ind, “he spirit of the living God, praised
an echo of the doctrines of the Ptah and gloriied be the name of Him who
priesthood of centuries before? lives to all eternity. he articulate word of
creative power, the spirit and the word are
From the Kabbalah what we call the holy spirit.”
We now turn to the Kabbalah, or hen in Chapter II, Section 6: “He
metaphysical doctrines of the Jews. he created a reality out of nothing, called
Sepher Yezirah, one of the chief books the nonentity into existence and hewed,
of the Kabbalah literally means “Book as it were, colossal pillars from intangible
of Creation” or cosmogony. When the air....He predetermined, and by speaking
original of this book was written is not created every creature and every word by
known. Hebrew scholars have established one name. For an illustration may serve
diferent periods for its origin. he exact the twenty-two elementary substances by
time is lost in the shades of antiquity. the primitive substance of Aleph.”
However, a more or less general opinion
holds that the book came into existence Powerful Mantras
about the beginning the second or third he Hindu mantras consisting of
century of the [Common] era. combinations of vowel intonations are
he book teaches that the First Cause, attributed speciic powers in afecting
“eternal and all-wise, almighty, is the the human emotions and stimulating
origin and center of the whole universe.” the psychic centers, and even in having
From this First Cause all Being emanated. certain therapeutic value. Of course, as
he book further relates that thought, Rosicrucians, we know that the vibrations
speech, and action are an inseparable unity of the human voice in speciic combinations
in the Divine Being. he Hebrew language of vowels can induce psychical conditions
and its characters correspond mostly to of an exhilarating nature in a person.
the things that they designate, and thus With most early cultures, the deities
“holy thoughts, Hebrew language and its were thought to be anthropomorphic.
reduction to writing, form a unity which hey were, therefore, conceived to have
produces a creative efect.” humanlike qualities. If the deities created,
More simply put, the letters of the they would use similar functions and
language, whether written or spoken, attributes to those of humans. In other
are elements of a potential power which words, they would think and plan, but
brings into existence the very thing they how would they objectify their ideas? What
represent. hey are not symbols as in other would cause it to have reality? Simply, how
languages, it was thought, but integral would thoughts become things? he vocal
units of cosmic or divine energy. command carries force, the voice can be
heard, it can be felt, and it may move
Sepher Yezirah persons to act, to bring about material
It is frequently observed by Jewish things that will conform to the idea behind
and Christian theologians that the the spoken word. Consequently, it was an
Marcionite Gnostic system as well as that easy matter to assume that the deities, in
Rosicrucian of Clementines of the second century creating, did likewise, that their voice was
Digest
No. 2
contain many analogies and parallels to the medium to convert the idea into a
2012 the Sepher Yezirah. thing.
Page 18
 In the traditions of the various cultures state of consciousness and response to the
there was believed to be a iat, a Word that occasion.
had the vibratory eicacy to have originally
We can hold to the view in our modern
brought the Cosmos into existence. It
world that a single word uttered did
was further held that this word had been
not create all of reality out of nonentity.
known to humankind but, somehow, in the
vicissitudes of time and in the degradation However, we do hold to the cosmological
of humanity it became lost. Mystically concept that the basic or primary reality is
and factually certain words, when uttered, a vibratory energy. It is a spectrum or scale
are most beneicial to be heard as sounds. of energy out of which all things manifest.
Primitive people learned of the value of Our interpretations of the sensations and
these sounds in their exclamations and the realization we have of such vibratory
cries of pain, pleasure, surprise, anger, energy are not exact archetypes of it. In
and so on. In the ancient mystery schools other words, we do not experience directly
certain intonations of mantras were used absolute reality but only those efects
to prepare the initiate to attain the proper which they have on our consciousness.

Page 19
 Three Kabbalistic Meditations
from the Sepher Yetzirah
Julie Scott, SRC
In this article, Grand Master Julie Scott presents three Kabbalistic meditations, using tech-
niques from the Sepher Yetzirah.

A
ccording to the Rosicrucian and the number two, etc. When letters are
teachings, the Sepher Yetzirah, the combined to form a word, then each word
oldest of all Kabbalistic texts, is has a numerical value too, based on the
a meditation manual. Dr. Isidor Kalisch, total of the numeral letters in that word.
translator of the Sepher Yetzirah edition A list with each Hebrew Letter, its
published by the Rosicrucian Order, Name, Meaning or essence/essential
AMORC,1 describes it as a metaphysical energy, and Number is presented in Chart
essay. Aryeh Kaplan writes, “What we No. 1.
therefore have in Sefer Yetzirah appears to be
an instructional manual, describing certain ChartHebrew
No. 1.Alphabet
Hebrew Alphabet.
meditative exercises.”2 Letter Name Meaning Number

Some of the meditation techniques in  Alef Ox 1

the Sepher Yetzirah include combining the  Bet House 2

Hebrew letters in chants, gazing upon their  Gimel Camel 3
form, and creating images of the letters in  Dalet Door 4
our minds and with our hands.
 Hay Window 5
We will experiment with these
techniques below.  Vav Hook 6

he Hebrew Letters  Zayin Weapon 7

he twenty-two Hebrew letters

 Chet Fence 8

are believed to contain or exude the  Tet Snake 9

essential energy of what they represent.  Yud Hand 10

For example, Mem represents water and  Kaf Palm of Hand 20
the essence or character of water. Dalet  Lamed Ox Goad 30
represents a door and the essential energy
or power of a door. he purpose of certain  Mem Water 40

Kabbalistic meditations is to manifest or  Nun Fish 50

activate the associated essential energy or  Samekh Prop 60
power, within us and around us.  Ayin Eye 70
Also, the shape of each letter has
 Pay Mouth 80
signiicance and can speak to us on a more
than intellectual level. Many Kabbalistic  Tzaddi Fish Hook 90

meditations include working with the  Kuf Back of Head 100

shapes of the Hebrew letters.  Resh Head 200
Rosicrucian Each Hebrew letter functions as a
Digest  Shin Tooth 300
numeral as well as a letter. Alef is a letter
No. 2
and also the number one, Bet is a letter
 Tav Cross 400
2012
Page 20
Combining the Hebrew letters from left to right, although Hebrew is read
he 231 Gates Meditation from right to left. We have also included a
When we combine each of the twenty- pronunciation guide – Chart No. 3.
two Hebrew letters with all the rest (for While listening to the recording of
example, Alef Bet, Alef Gimel, Alef Dalet, the 231 Gates meditation, chant along
etc.) we create the 231 Gates. or just gaze upon the letters – each letter
From the Sepher Yetzirah: individually, as they are combined, or
2:2 “Twenty-two fundamental letters around the spherical mandala as they are
were joined together by God in a Circle spoken. Or chant them on your own.
of 231 Gates, a Circle which sways to and
fro.” You may also choose to draw the lines
2:4 “God weighed and combined Alef on the blank sphere below connecting
with all the letters and all with Alef, Bet each letter with the others, either in silence
with all and all with Bet, and so on with or while they are being chanted.
each of them. hus, all the letters arose
from 231 Gates and emanated from one
Name.”
Sometimes the 231 Gates are illustrated
in the mandala below. If we place the
Hebrew letters at equal points around a
circle and connect each letter with every
other letter, the lines connecting them
create this design.

Allow plenty of time and privacy for

this meditation.
While doing this open yourself to any
impressions you may receive.
Creating images of the Hebrew letters –
in our minds
Intense focus and visualization are
he 231 Gates. important aspects of many meditation
You will ind a recording of the 231 practices, including the Rosicrucian
Gates meditation online at http://www. techniques of concentration and
rosicrucian.org/publications/. contemplation, and many Kabbalistic
To make it easy to follow along with exercises.
this meditation, we have created Chart No. he Sepher Yetzirah provides
2, which shows the letter combinations instructions on how to deeply focus and
with the Hebrew letters written in English. visualize the Hebrew letters, thus attuning
For ease of reading, this chart is written with their power or energy.
Page 21
 The 231 Gates
Read down each double column (pairs of letters), starting at the left.

Alef Bet

Alef Gimel Bet Gimel

Alef Dalet Bet Dalet Gimel Dalet

Alef Hay Bet Hay Gimel Hay Dalet Hay

Alef Vav Bet Vav Gimel Vav Dalet Vav Hay Vav

Alef Zayin Bet Zayin Gimel Zayin Dalet Zayin Hay Zayin Vav Zayin

Alef Chet Bet Chet Gimel Chet Dalet Chet Hay Chet Vav Chet Zayin Chet

Alef Tet Bet Tet Gimel Tet Dalet Tet Hay Tet Vav Tet Zayin Tet Chet Tet

Alef Yud Bet Yud Gimel Yud Dalet Yud Hay Yud Vav Yud Zayin Yud Chet Yud Tet Yud

Alef Kaf Bet Kaf Gimel Kaf Dalet Kaf Hay Kaf Vav Kaf Zayin Kaf Chet Kaf Tet Kaf Yud Kaf

Alef Lamed Bet Lamed Gimel Lamed Dalet Lamed Hay Lamed Vav Lamed Zayin Lamed Chet Lamed Tet Lamed Yud Lamed

Alef Mem Bet Mem Gimel Mem Dalet Mem Hay Mem Vav Mem Zayin Mem Chet Mem Tet Mem Yud Mem

Alef Nun Bet Nun Gimel Nun Dalet Nun Hay Nun Vav Nun Zayin Nun Chet Nun Tet Nun Yud Nun

Alef Samekh Bet Samekh Gimel Samekh Dalet Samekh Hay SamekhVav Samekh Zayin Samekh Chet Samekh Tet Samekh Yud Samekh

Alef Ayin Bet Ayin Gimel Ayin Dalet Ayin Hay Ayin Vav Ayin Zayin Ayin Chet Ayin Tet Ayin Yud Ayin

Alef Pay Bet Pay Gimel Pay Dalet Pay Hay Pay Vav Pay Zayin Pay Chet Pay Tet Pay Yud Pay

Alef Tzaddi Bet Tzaddi Gimel Tzaddi Dalet Tzaddi Hay Tzaddi Vav Tzaddi Zayin Tzaddi Chet Tzaddi Tet Tzaddi Yud Tzaddi

Alef Kuf Bet Kuf Gimel Kuf Dalet Kuf Hay Kuf Vav Kuf Zayin Kuf Chet Kuf Tet Kuf Yud Kuf

Alef Resh Bet Resh Gimel Resh Dalet Resh Hay Resh Vav Resh Zayin Resh Chet Resh Tet Resh Yud Resh

Alef Shin Bet Shin Gimel Shin Dalet Shin Hay Shin Vav Shin Zayin Shin Chet Shin Tet Shin Yud Shin

Alef Tav Bet Tav Gimel Tav Dalet Tav Hay Tav Vav Tav Zayin Tav Chet Tav Tet Tav Yud Tav

Chart No. 2.

Rosicrucian
Digest
No. 2
2012
Page 22
Kaf Lamed

Kaf Mem Lamed Mem

Kaf Nun Lamed Nun Mem Nun

Kaf SamekhLamed Samekh Mem Samekh Nun Samekh

Kaf Ayin Lamed Ayin Mem Ayin Nun Ayin Samekh Ayin

Kaf Pay Lamed Pay Mem Pay Nun Pay Samekh Pay Ayin Pay

Kaf Tzaddi Lamed Tzaddi Mem Tzaddi Nun Tzaddi Samekh Tzaddi Ayin Tzaddi Pay Tzaddi

Kaf Kuf Lamed Kuf Mem Kuf Nun Kuf Samekh Kuf Ayin Kuf Pay Kuf Tzaddi Kuf

Kaf Resh Lamed Resh Mem Resh Nun Resh Samekh Resh Ayin Resh Pay Resh Tzaddi Resh Kuf Resh

Kaf Shin Lamed Shin Mem Shin Nun Shin Samekh Shin Ayin Shin Pay Shin Tzaddi Shin Kuf Shin Resh Shin

Kaf Tav Lamed Tav Mem Tav Nun Tav Samekh Tav Ayin Tav Pay Tav Tzaddi Tav Kuf Tav Resh Tav Shin Tav

Page 23
 2:3 “Twenty-two fundamental letters Creating images of the Hebrew letters –
were carved by God, sculpted, weighed, with our hands
and combined.” After doing the exercise above mentally,
his technique engraves the letters in take color pencils or pens and do the same
our minds, then carves them – illing our thing on the pages of this magazine (or
entire consciousness. make copies) – engrave, carve, permute,
Chart No. 4 (on page 26) shows each weigh, and transform the letters so that
of the twenty-two Hebrew letters. Choose they ill your entire consciousness.
one and focus on its shape. Close your eyes While doing this open yourself to any
and see it clearly in your mind’s eye. impressions you may receive.
See the letter carved out or ablaze Now bring the letters to life by creating
with color and life against a contrasting a three dimensional work of art.
background. hen see the background First choose one of the Hebrew letters
carved out or ablaze with color and life and become thoroughly familiar with its
behind the empty image. Now choose corresponding numerical value, essence,
another letter and do the same thing. pronunciation, and form. Various charts
While doing this open yourself to any with this information are presented in this
impressions you may receive. magazine for your reference.
Chart No. 3. Pronunciation Guide for Hebrew Letters.

t Alef AH-lef k Lamed LAH-med

c Bet BET n Mem MEM

d Gimel GIH-mel b Nun* NUN*

s Dalet DAH-let x Samekh* SAH-mekh*

v Hay HAY g Ayin AH-yin

u Vav VAHV p Pay PAY

z Zayin ZAH-yin m Tzaddi TSAH-dee

j Chet* CHET* e Kuf* KUF*

y Tet TET r Resh RAYSH

h Yud* YUD* a Shin SHIN

f Kaf KAHF , Tav TAHV

Rosicrucian *Note: “ch” and “kh” to be pronounced as the German “Bach” and the ch" and the S
Scottish
Digest d "look."
“loch.” “U” to be pronounced as the “oo” in “book” and “look.”
No. 2
2012
Page 24
 hen create a work of art based on If you have found these meditations
your experience of this letter. Allow time interesting, then you may ind the
for this creation to manifest. Make it as Rosicrucian and Martinist lessons dealing
three dimensional as possible. Stand it up, with Kabbalah especially inspiring and
hollow it out, carve it, engrave it, and add beneicial.
other qualities such as sound or smell.
While doing this open yourself to any
impressions you may receive. Author’s Note: Many thanks to Lloyd Abrams,
Ph.D., FRC for creating the original charts for
After you have completed this work of this article and for serving as a most helpful
art, deconstruct it within twenty-two days advisor for this issue of the Rosicrucian Digest.
of completion, returning as many of its
parts back to nature as possible.
he Rosicrucian and Martinist
teachings include many Kabbalistic
lessons, meditations, and exercises. In fact, ENDNOTES
Kabbalah is one of the most important 1. Isidor Kalisch, Sepher Yezirah, A Book on Creation,
(San Jose: Rosicrucian Order, AMORC, 2002).
sources contributing to the Rosicrucian 2. Aryeh Kaplan, Sefer Yetzirah: he Book of Creation,
teachings and even more so to the Martinist (Newburyport, MA and San Francisco, CA: Red
teachings. Wheel/Weiser, 1997).

Ten Sephirot on the Cordoba Synagogue's east wall.

Spain. Photo Roy Lindman.

Page 25
 The Hebrew Alphabet

Rosicrucian
Digest
No. 2 Chart No. 4. he Hebrew Alphabet.
2012
Page 26
 Masculine and Feminine
1

Symbolism in Kabbalah
Lloyd Abrams, Ph.D., FRC
Lloyd Abrams, Ph.D., FRC, serves on the Editorial Board of the Rose+Croix Journal (www.
rosecroixjournal.org) and is an instructor for Rose Croix University International. He has
presented many programs and workshops on Kabbalah. In this article, he explains many of the
core Kabbalistic concepts and relates them to masculine and feminine symbolism in Kabbalah.

W
hen dealing with intangible unity—neither masculine nor feminine.
spiritual or metaphysical While Ain Sof is absolute unity, the world is
concepts, it is helpful to make characterized by duality, pairs of opposites,
use of symbols and metaphors derived from polarities. he archetypal symbol for
familiar everyday experience. Kabbalah has this in Kabbalah is the masculine and
been described as “an alphabet of symbols in feminine. It is the archetype of contrasts
which a spiritual language is constructed.”2 or pairs of opposites. Human gender is
Two important symbolic terms in Kabbalah only one concrete manifestation of this
are “masculine” and “feminine.” While more general concept.
not specifically denoting men and women, he Seirot
Kabbalistic symbolism draws upon some
aspects of these terms to communicate by Ain Sof creates and sustains the world
analogy certain characteristics of spiritual by emanating the Ininite Light (Ain Sof
concepts and processes. Or), which lows downward giving rise
to a series of ten Seirot. Each Seirah is a
In Kabbalistic tradition, especially diferent attribute or function of Divinity
in the Zohar and the teachings of Isaac as it manifests at each successive level.
Luria (1534-1572), while the essential In Kabbalah, the masculine-feminine
nature of Divinity is neither masculine polarity relates to the direction of this
nor feminine, some of the ways in which low, giving and receiving. Speciically,
the Deity manifests and relates to the it relates to giving and receiving Divine
world are diferentiated from one another Light. his symbolism is based on the
by being conceptualized symbolically as process of procreation. he father gives his
either masculine or feminine. In addition, seed to the mother. he mother receives
the processes which create and sustain the seed into the womb, where it takes on
the universe are understood in symbolic the form of the new creature. Giving is
terms drawn by analogy from human thus associated with the masculine and
reproduction. receiving is associated with the feminine.
Kabbalah makes a distinction between In one sense, then, each Seirah can be
the essential nature of Divinity and its seen as both feminine and masculine—
various emanations and manifestations. feminine in relation to the preceding
he essential nature and highest aspect Seirah, from which it receives the Light,
of the Divine is Ain Sof, which means and masculine relative to the next lower
ininite, limitless or unbounded. Ain Sof Seirah, to which it gives the Light.3 In
transcends all categories of thought. It general, however, each Seirah is identiied
is an unknowable, formless and ininite as either masculine or feminine.

Page 27
 1
KETER
Crown

3 2
BINAH CHOKHMAH
Understanding Wisdom

5 4
GEBURAH CHESED
Severity Mercy
6
TIFERET
Beauty

8 7
HOD NETZACH
Splendor Victory

9
YESOD
Foundation

10
MALKHUT
Kingdom
Rosicrucian
Digest
No. 2
2012 he 10 Seirot
Page 28
 he father’s seed is without form,
undiferentiated. It is in the womb of the
mother that the embryo takes on form
and diferentiates into various organs and
limbs. Formlessness is therefore associated
with the masculine, and Form is associated
with the feminine.
As the Ininite Light lows downward
from Ain Sof, the Seirot serve as vessels
to receive and hold the Light. At each
successive level of emanation, the vessels
become more and more “dense” and the
Light is more and more veiled, eventually
culminating in our material world. Light
tends to expand ininitely in all directions,
while vessels contain and restrict things
within boundaries. herefore, the
masculine is associated with expansiveness
while the feminine is associated with
restriction. he Ancient of Days by William Blake.

In Kabbalistic terminology, all of

these pairs of opposites or complimentary Abba (Father). he Partzuf of Binah
concepts are symbolized by the archetype (Understanding) is Ima (Mother). It is said
of the masculine and the feminine: giving that Chokhmah impregnates Binah with
and receiving, formlessness and form, light the Light, and Binah then gives birth to all
and vessel, expansiveness and restriction. the lower Seirot. Abba and Ima personify
he Partzuim this idea. It is the metaphorical sexual
union between Abba and Ima, Father and
Partzuim (faces) are anthropomorphic Mother, that generates the downward low
representations of diferent aspects of of Light that gives birth to the seven lower
Deity. hey are personiications of the Seirot.5
functions of the Seirot. Isaac Luria drew
upon terms and concepts from the Zohar he next Partzuf is Zeir Anpin (Small
and constructed an elaborate system of Face, Microprosopus). he term “Small
Partzuim to describe in detail how the Face” is in contrast to the “Large Face”
Seirot relate to each other and to our of Keter. In a way, Zeir Anpin is a lower
world.4 counterpart or relection of Arikh Anpin.
Zeir Anpin consists of the next six Seirot:
he Partzuf of the irst Seirah, Keter, Chesed (Mercy), Geburah (Severity),
is called Arikh Anpin, translated as the Tiferet (Beauty), Netzach (Victory), Hod
Long Face or Large Face. Christian and (Splendor), and Yesod (Foundation).
Hermetic Kabbalah often use the Latin hese six Seirot have been associated with
translation of this term, Macroprosopus. the six days of Creation described in the
Keter is also personiied as Atika Kadisha irst chapter of Genesis. his is consistent
(the Holy Ancient One) and as Atik Yomin with the metaphor of the sexual union of
(the Ancient of Days). Abba (Chokhmah) and Ima (Binah) as the
he second Partzuf, associated with creative act giving rise to everything below
the Seirah Chokhmah (Wisdom), is them.
Page 29
 Arikh Anpin 1 Large Face human souls, which descend to join with
KETER
Crown the physical bodies produced by the union
Ima 3 2
of the earthly husband and wife.
Abba
Mother BINAH CHOKHMAH
Father
Understanding Wisdom When Shekhinah unites with Her
partner, Tif´eret, souls issue from the
gushing river of Yesod. Stimulated by
Her passion from below, the stream of
souls lows into Her.7
“And a river went forth from
6 he Holy
Zeir Anpin TIFERET One, Eden to water the Garden.” [Genesis
Small Face Beauty Blessed 2:10] From the union of the male
Be He
and female—meaning, of course, in
the transcendence—come all souls
which animate men. he inference is
that the Eden-river is that of life, or
synonymously it is the river of souls,
and in this case we shall understand
Nukva 10 Shekhinah that the Higher Eden is the place of
Female MALKHUT
Kingdom Divine Nuptials, while the Garden
which was watered by the river was
he 5 Partzuim the place of nuptials below. . . At the
Although it consists of all six of these moment of the union of the Spouse
Seirot, Zeir Anpin is usually represented and Bride all souls came forth from the
by the single Seirah, Tiferet.6 he union celestial river.8
of Abba (Father) and Ima (Mother) gives
rise to Zeir Anpin, so Zeir Anpin (Tiferet) is he Holy One and His Shekhinah
also called “he Son.” It is also referred to
In this system, the relationship between
as “he Holy One, blessed be He.”
Tiferet and Malkhut crucially afects the
he Partzuf of the tenth Seirah, state of our world. When the Holy One,
Malkhut (Kingdom), is Nukva, “he blessed be He, and the Shekhinah join
Female.” Nukva is also referred to as the together in sexual union, this increases the
Bride of Zeir Anpin, who is the Bridegroom low of Divine Light and blessings into
or the Spouse. As Malkhut is the aspect our world. But when they turn away from
of Deity that dwells within the material each other, the low of Light and blessings
world, it is also called the Shekhinah (from diminishes, and the inluence of evil gains
the Hebrew root meaning “to dwell”), strength in the world. Human actions
“he Divine Presence.” can afect the actions of these Partzuim
So there are two male-female pairs (as below, so above). Sinful behavior
of Partzuim: Abba and Ima, Father and causes the Holy One and the Shekhinah
Mother, whose coupling emanates the to turn away from each other. hey can
lower Seirot, and Zeir Anpin and Nukva, be induced to turn toward each other and
the Son and His Bride, whose coupling join together when we live in accordance
causes the Divine Light and its blessings to with the Divine Will by fulilling the
Rosicrucian
low into our world. commandments. (here are a total of 613
Digest In the imagery of the Zohar, the union commandments in the Torah, the irst ive
No. 2 of Tiferet and Malkhut also gives birth to books of the Hebrew Bible.)
2012
Page 30
 SEFIRAH PARTZUF OTHER NAMES DIVINE
NAME
Keter Arikh Anpin Atika Kadisha, Atik Yomin Ehyeh
Crown Large Face Holy Ancient One, Ancient of Days
Chokhmah Abba Yah
Wisdom Father
Binah Ima Elohim
Understanding Mother
Tiferet Zeir Anpin Kudsha Berikh Hu, Son, Spouse YHVH
Beauty Small Face he Holy One blessed be He
Malkhut Nukva Shekhinah, Bride Adonai
Kingdom he Female he Divine Presence

Table No. 1: Name Correspondences.

he world as irst created was a true as by sins in general, can be restored

Garden of Eden because the blessed by the kabbalistic performance of the
Holy One and Shekhinah were “face to commandments.10
face,” joined in constant embrace like He and they (the Kabbalists in
that of Hokhmah and Binah. Divine particular) share in the task of restoring
blessing thus coursed through the cosmic oneness, of bringing divine
system without interruption, lowing male and female face to face with one
through all of Shekhinah’s “hosts” and another so that the lights might shine
“palaces” into an idealized lower world throughout the universe, so that the
as well. Only Adam and Eve’s sin . . . waters of life might low through Her
disturbed this initial harmony. Since to nourish and sustain all the worlds
the expulsion from Eden, the union of below.11
Tif ’eret and Malkhut, or Blessed Holy “he uniting of the blessed Holy
One and Shekhinah, has been sporadic One and His Shekhinah” became for the
rather than constant, dependent upon Castilian Kabbalists the overwhelming
the balance of human virtue and goal of the religious life, and virtually
transgression.9 all of the commandments were viewed
he harmonious relation between as part of this efort.12
Tifereth and Malkhut, or, as this relation For the Kabbalist, it is not suicient
was more commonly called, “Yihud to perform the commandments in a casual
Kudsha Berikh Hu u-Shekhintei” (the or automatic way. One has to have the
uniication of the Holy One, blessed proper Kavanah, that is, the proper mental
be He, and His Divine Presence), is intention and focused mind in order to
crucial for the welfare of the world. have an efect upon the upper realm.
Only when the union between the Prior to performing a commandment, in
two divine powers is achieved can the order to achieve the necessary conscious
inlux stemming from the Eyn Sof (the intention and focus, the Kabbalist recites
ininite one) be transmitted to the a formula that begins: “For the sake of
lower world. his harmony, which was uniication between he Holy Blessed One
disturbed by the primordial sin, as well and His Shechinah . . .”13
Page 31
 Another way to induce the Holy One the four Hebrew letters Alef Dalet Nun
and the Shekhinah to join together is for Yud (ADNY). Uniting these two Divine
a husband and wife to engage in sexual Names with properly focused intention
relations in a manner consistent with (Kavanah) theurgically unites Tiferet with
the commandments and with the proper Malkhut, the Holy One blessed be He with
theurgical intention (Kavanah). he the Shekhinah.
husband identiies with the Holy One,
blessed be He, and the wife embodies the
Shekhinah, the feminine Divine Presence
in the world.
he human pair performing the
sexual union is able to induce a state
of harmony above. he sexual act is
conceived as fraught with theurgical
powers. With most of the kabbalists,
this human act both relects the higher
structure and inluences it. herefore, Tetra- 6 he Holy
marriage and sexual union have a grammaton TIFERET One,
Beauty Blessed
tremendous impact on the upper Be He
worlds. . . Marriage and sex were
transformed into a mystery that relects
a mysterious marriage above, whose
success is crucial for both the divine
cosmos and the lower universe.14
he Zohar contains glorious
descriptions of the correspondence
between the upper union and the Adonai 10
lower union, assuring the reader that MALKHUT Shekhina
his coupling with his wife, carried out Kingdom

within the proper halakhic rules and

bounded as well by mystical intention, One way to unite the names YHVH
is potentially a holy and cosmos- and Adonai is to unite (add together)
redeeming act, one that unites the their numerical values. Each letter of the
seirot and draws a holy soul to come Hebrew alphabet is also a number, and
into this world.15 each word has a number value equal to
the sum of its letters. In the Kabbalistic
Uniting Divine Names system of Gematria, any two words or
Each of the ten Seirot symbolizes the phrases that have the same number value
manifestation of Divinity on a diferent share a deep connection, and are in some
level in the sequence of emanations, and way equivalent. he numerical value of
each Seirah carries a diferent Divine YHVH is 26, and the numerical value of
Name. he Divine Name associated with Adonai is 65. Uniting these two names
Tiferet is the Tetragrammaton, composed yields the sum of 91. he letters of the
of the four Hebrew letters Yud Hay Vav Hebrew word Amen (Alef Mem Nun) also
Hay (usually rendered in English as add up to 91. Being aware of this numerical
Rosicrucian
Digest YHVH). he Divine Name associated equivalence, whenever one says “Amen” at
No. 2 with Malkhut is Adonai, composed of the end of a prayer or blessing using the
2012
Page 32
proper Kavanah/intention, one is mentally he Pentagrammaton
uniting the Divine Names YHVH and In Christian Kabbalah, the Hebrew
Adonai, and theurgically uniting the Holy letter Shin is inserted into the middle of
One and His Shekhinah. the Tetragrammaton (YHVH) to produce
a ive-letter name (Yud Hay Shin Vav Hay),
which is a variant spelling of Jesus’ Hebrew
name, Yeshua (alternatively pronounced
Yeheshua or Yehoshua). his ive-letter
name is called the Pentagrammaton, and it
is considered to be Jesus’ secret name, the
“wonder-working word.”16
Shin is the irst letter of the Hebrew
word Shekhinah and could therefore
Another way to unite the names be used to symbolically represent the
YHVH and Adonai is to combine their Shekhinah. he shape of the letter Shin
letters into a single eight-letter name. also resembles an altar with three lit
his is done by taking one letter at a time candles, the Rosicrucian symbol for the
alternately from each name until all eight Divine Presence, which is also called “the
letters have been interleaved into a single Shekinah.” Combining Shin with YHVH
new name that symbolically unites Tiferet to form the Kabbalistic name of Jesus
and Malkhut. When saying “Amen” with (YHShVH) could therefore be seen as
the proper intention at the end of a prayer another way to represent the uniication
or blessing, the combined eight-letter of Tiferet and Malkhut, the Holy One and
name can be internally visualized and His Shekhinah, the transcendent Deity and
mentally intoned, thereby theurgically the Divine Presence in the world.
inducing the uniication of the Holy One
and the Shekhinah.
here are two forms of this eight-letter
name. For blessings, which descend from
above, alternate letters are taken irst from
YHVH and then from Adonai. For the
Kadish prayer, which sends praise upward
from below, letters are taken irst from
Adonai and then from YHVH.

Construction of the Pentagrammaton.

Amen for Blessings. Pentagrammaton on the title page of

(Hebrew is written from right to left.) “he Light of Martinism.”

Page 33
 he Shekinah in the Grand Temple, Rosicrucian Park, San Jose, California.

ENDNOTES
1. here is no universally accepted method for spelling In the Tree of Life diagram, Tiferet is the only Seirah
Hebrew words using the English alphabet. In direct that is directly connected by paths to the other ive.
quotations from other works, the original author’s Tiferet is Seirah #6. It is also associated with the
spelling has been retained, trusting that the reader third letter of the Tetragrammaton, Vav, which has
will not be troubled by the resulting inconsistencies the numerical value of six. See Vital, Tree of Life, 60.
in spelling. 7. Daniel C. Matt, trans., he Zohar: Pritzker Edition.
2. Henrietta Bernstein, Cabalah Primer: Introduction to Vol. III (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006),
English/Hebrew Cabalah (Marina del Rey: DeVorss 274.
& Company, 1984), 17. 8. A. E. Waite, he Holy Kabbalah: A Mystical
3. “According to a sixteenth-century kabbalist [R. Interpretation of the Scriptures (New York: Citadel
Moshe Cordovero], the whole process of emanation Press, 1995), 392-393.
can be described as the successive impregnations and 9. Arthur Green, A Guide to the Zohar (Stanford:
births of the sephirot from one another, beginning Stanford University Press, 2004), 75.
with Causa Causarum and ending with the last 10. Idel, “Sexual Metaphors,” 207.
sephirah.” Moshe Idel, “Sexual Metaphors and Praxis 11. Green, Guide, 52.
in the Kabbalah,” in he Jewish Family: Metaphor and 12. Ibid., 130.
Memory, ed. David Kraemer (New York: Oxford 13. S. P. Berg, he Kabbalistic Daily Prayer Book: Siddur
University Press, 1989), 210. T’ilah L’ani For Weekdays (New York: Yeshivat Kol
4. Hayyim Vital, he Tree of Life: Chayyim Vital’s Yehuda Press, 1999), 31.
Introduction to the Kabbalah of Isaac Luria. Volume I: 14. Idel, “Sexual Metaphors,” 207-208.
he Palace of Adam Kadmon, trans. Donald Wilder 15. Green, Guide, 115.
Menzi and Zwe Padeh (New York: Arizal Publications 16. Moshe Idel, “Introduction to the Bison Book
Inc., 2008). Edition,” in Johann Reuchlin, On he Art of the
5. “he seven lower sephirot were generated out of Kabbalah: De Arte Cabalistica, trans. Martin and
the union between Hokhmah and Binah, the seven Sarah Goodman (Lincoln: University of Nebraska
sephirot being commonly considered the ‘sons’ of the Press, 1993), xix. G. Lloyd Jones, “Introduction,” in
Rosicrucian
higher sephirot.” Idel, “Sexual Metaphors,” 210. Reuchlin, Art of the Kabbalah, 17. Reuchlin, Art of
Digest
6. It seems appropriate to use Tiferet to represent these the Kabbalah, 77 and 353.
No. 2
six Seirot. Tiferet is centrally located among the six.
2012
Page 34
 Pico della Mirandola
and the Cabala
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, D. Phil.
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, D. Phil., Oxon, (1953-2012), was an eminent professor of Western
Esotericism at the University of Exeter (http://centres.exeter.ac.uk/exeseso/) and co-founder of the
European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism. In this article, Professor Goodrick-Clarke
introduces us to the extraordinary inluence of Pico della Mirandola and the Cabala on Western
thought.
From pp. 41 - 46 of he Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical Introduction, “Italian Renaissance Magic
and Cabala” by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, ©2008. Reprinted with permission of Oxford University Press
(www.oup.com).

G
iovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463- was the pupil of the Jewish philosopher Elia
1494), a young contemporary of del Medigo. At this time he was in touch
*Marsilio Ficino developed an even with humanist scholars in diferent places,
more powerful variety of Renaissance magic and he visited Florence repeatedly, where
by introducing the Jewish Kabbalah into he met Ficino. He spent the following
Western thought. Pico’s wealth, nobility, years at home and on various visits, while
personal charm, and handsome face have continuing the study of Greek. In 1486, he
combined with his precocious brilliance and returned to Florence, but, after becoming
early death to make him one of the famous involved in a strange love afair, he moved
figures of the Renaissance. Unlike Ficino, to Perugia, where he studied Hebrew
the retiring cleric and scholar, Pico led a and Arabic under the guidance of several
varied life within the few years granted to Jewish teachers, including the mysterious
him. His ambitious claims for Renaissance Flavius Mithridates.1
magic initially brought him into conflict his period marked the beginning of his
with various theologians, and his work interest in the Jewish Kabbalah, a medieval
was condemned by Pope Innocent VIII. mystical and speculative tradition that
He is most famous for his Oration on the claimed an ancient origin but was in fact
Dignity of Man (1487), which proclaims the much inluenced by Neoplatonism. Pico’s
centrality, importance, and freedom of man Christian Cabala (the Latin term was usual
in the universe. among Renaissance Christian writers) was
based on the tradition developed by Jews in
Pico was a younger son in the family of Spain during the Middle Ages. Although
the counts of Mirandola and Concordia, the Jews were not inally expelled from
who ruled as feudal lords over a small Spain until 1492, their persecution by
territory in northern Italy. Destined by his the Catholic authorities there had already
mother for a Church career, he was named encouraged many to lee to France and
papal protonotary at the age of ten and Italy. Pico learned the Kabbalah direct
began to study canon law at Bologna in from the Spanish Jew Flavius Mithridates
1477, at age thirteen. Two years later, he and others. his cultural transfer of Jewish
commenced the study of philosophy at the wisdom from the West comparable to the
University of Ferrara, subsequently moving earlier import of Greek learning from the
in 1482 to the University of Padua, one of East enabled Pico to immerse himself in
the leading Aristotelian centers. Here he this Jewish mystical and magical system.
Page 35
 his medieval Jewish Kabbalah was system and are themselves arranged in
based on the ten sephiroth and the twenty- hierarchies. Similarly, there are also bad
two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. he angels or demons, organized in hierarchies
doctrine of the sephiroth was irst laid down corresponding to their good opposites.
in the Book of Creation (Sefer Yetzirah), Jewish Kabbalistic mysticism was also
dating back to the third century A.D., connected with the Scriptures through
when Greek Jews were also receptive to three kinds of exegetical techniques based
the Neoplatonist currents of late antiquity. on manipulations of the words and letters
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, of the Hebrew text, known as gematria,
a particular esoteric teaching emerged in notarikon, and themurah. hese ideas
Provence and northern Spain with the Book derived from the Ginnat Egoz (Garden of
of Illumination (Sefer Bahir), composed Nuts), written in 1274 by the Castilian
by Isaac the Blind (l. 1190–1210). his Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla (ca. 1247-
Kabbalah interpreted the seiroth as powers 1305), a pupil of the famous Kabbalist
of God arranged in a speciic structure. Abraham ben Samuel Abulaia (1240—
he Bahir was also the irst text to describe ca. 1292), who had introduced an ecstatic
the seiroth as a “tree of emanation,” which Kabbalah whereby the seiroth led on to
from the fourteenth century onward was the mystical contemplation to the Divine
depicted in a detailed diagram widely Names of the Creator. hese exercises were
familiar today as the Tree of Life. he typically mystical, but there was also a
Bahir also aided the development of magical side to Kabbalah. As a means of
speculative Kabbalah based on the seiroth approaching the sephiroth, seventy-two
as cosmic principles arranged in a primal angels could be invoked by a person who
group of three major emanations above knew their names and numbers, and these
a lower group of seven. he doctrine was were also eicient if Hebrew words, letters,
developed further in the Book of Splendor or signs were suitably arranged.
(Sefer Zohar), written in Spain during the Pico discerned a wonderful symmetry
thirteenth century, which represents the between the Kabbalah and Hermeticism.
tradition adopted by Pico. he sephiroth he Egyptian lawgiver Hermes Trismegistus
are the ten names or expressions of God, had revealed mystical teachings, including
and the created universe is seen as the an account of Creation which hinted at
external manifestation of these forces. his his knowledge of Moses’ wisdom. In Pico’s
creative aspect of the sephiroth links them view, the Kabbalah ofered a further body
to cosmology, and there is a relationship of mystical doctrine, supposedly derived
between the ten sephiroth and the ten from the Hebrew lawgiver, and a parallel
spheres of the cosmos, composed of the view on cosmology. Armed with a greater
spheres of the seven planets, the sphere of knowledge of Hebrew than any other non-
ixed stars, and the higher spheres beyond Jewish scholar and his burning interest
these.2 in the Kabbalah, Pico set down a new
he ten sephiroth are arranged in a synthesis of Hermetic-Cabalistic magic in
cosmological system known as the Tree twenty-six “Magical Conclusions.”
of Life, whose structure provides for Here Pico dismissed medieval magic as
twenty-two pathways between the various the work of the devil but praised “natural
spheres. hese pathways correspond to magic” as a legitimate establishment of links
Rosicrucian the letters of the Hebrew alphabet but between heaven and earth by the proper
Digest also denote angels or divine spirits which use of natural substances as recommended
No. 2 act as intermediaries throughout the by the principles of sympathetic magic
2012
Page 36
(Magical Conclusion 1). He went on
to recommend Orphic incantations for
magical purposes (Magical Conclusion 2),
evidently referring to Ficino’s magic, whose
practices he already knew well through the
Academy at Florence.3
Flushed with conidence in the
powers of Cabala, Pico then described
the limitations of Ficinian practice. Pico
regarded Ficino’s natural magic as a weak
and inefective form of magic unless it
was combined with Cabala (Magical
Conclusion 15). Similarly, he held that
no powerful magic could be performed
without a knowledge of Hebrew (Magical
Conclusion 22) and even dismissed the
Orphic singing for magical operations in
the absence of Cabala (Magical Conclusion
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.
21). In his Cabalistic Conclusions and
Apology (1487), Pico distinguishes between invoking them in the powerful Hebrew
various forms of Cabala. “Speculative language or by magical combinations
Cabala” he divides into four types: irst, of the sacred Hebrew alphabet. Just as
the mystical manipulation of letters, there are superior spirits on these higher
followed by the exploration of the three planes, higher spiritual beings, great
worlds—the sensible or terrestrial world, demons also inhabit these regions. Pico
the celestial world of the stars, and the solemnly warns the cabalist to work in a
supercelestial world of the sephiroth and spirit of piety (Magical Conclusion 6). In
the angels.4 his seventy-two Cabalistic Conclusions,
hese latter categories were of prime Pico demonstrates his detailed knowledge
importance to Pico’s magic. Pico asserts of the Jewish system. He writes that the
that this kind of Cabala is a “way of Cabalist can communicate with God
capturing the powers of superior things” through the archangels in an ecstasy that
and is “the supreme part of natural magic.” may result in the death of the body, a way
Whereas natural magic aims no higher of dying known as the “Death of the Kiss”
than the terrestrial world and the stars, (Cabalistic Conclusion 11). He sets out
Cabala can be used to operate beyond in a table which shows the correspondences
the supercelestial spheres of the angels, between the ten spheres of the cosmos and
archangels, the sephiroth, and God. the ten sephiroth (Cabalistic Conclusion
Natural magic uses characters, but Cabala 48). He also describes the states of the
uses numbers through its use of letters soul in relation to the meanings of the ten
(Magical Conclusion 25). Natural magic sephiroth (such as unity, intellect, reason)
uses only intermediary causes, the stars. and traditionally links the highest sephiroth
Cabala goes straight to the irst cause, God with the lowest in a circular arrangement
himself (Magical Conclusion 26).5 (Cabalistic Conclusion 66).6

Pico elaborates in his Apology how he Oration on the Dignity of Man

cabalists may use the secret Hebrew Pico’s famous Oration on the Dignity of
names of God and names of angels, Man was written as an introduction to his
Page 37
 the power to be reborn into the
higher forms. Pico opens the
Oration with the quotation:
“A great miracle, Asclepius, is
man.” Whereas the Fathers of
the Church had placed man
in a digniied position as the
highest of terrestrial beings,
as a spectator of the universe,
Pico was citing the Hermetic
text Asclepius with its promise
of man’s equality with the gods:
“Man is a miracle, a living
thing to be worshipped and
honored: for he changes his
nature into a god’s, as if he
were a god. . . . Conjoined to
the gods by a kindred divinity,
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (middle) with Agnolo Poliziano (right) he despises inwardly that part
and Marsilio Ficino (left). Cosimo Rosselli, Chiesa di S.Ambrogio, of him in which he is earthly.”8
Firenze (1484 – 86). http://www.pico-kabbalah.eu/
Introducing the contents
nine hundred theses, which he took with of his nine hundred theses, Pico
him to Rome in 1486 in order to engage in a ranges over all the philosophers and
great public debate. he Oration has rightly mysteries he has studied. A keynote of
been regarded as a masterpiece of rhetoric, his philosophia nova is an attempt to
celebrating the newfound independence establish a concordance or correlation
and conidence of Renaissance man. Pico’s between all ancient philosophies in
statement marks the sea-change between support of a pristine theology (prisca
the medieval mind and the modern mind, theologia). A tribute to his precocious
the tremendous growth in man’s sense of learning (he was only twenty-four),
autonomy and dignity which had grown up the names of the Latins Duns Scotus,
with humanism. he Oration also rejects homas Aquinas, Giles of Rome,
as inadequate the traditional grounds for Franciscus de Mayronis, Albertus
Man’s importance in the world: his reason, Magnus, and Henry of Ghent are
or his place as the microcosm. Pico claims followed by the Arabs Avicenna,
that Man’s true greatness lies in his freedom Averroes, and al-Farabi. Further
to become whatever he wants to be. Both back among the ancients he invokes
animals and angels have their ixed place in the Greek Peripatetics and then the
the universe and are powerless to change Neoplatonists Plotinus, Porphyry,
their natures. But God gave to Man, alone Iamblichus, and Proclus. At the very
of all creatures, no ixed abode, form, or source of the ancient wisdom stand
function. Free of such limitations, he has Pythagoras, Mercurius Trismegistus,
the power to change and develop, to make Zoroaster, and the “Hebrew Cabalist
and mould himself.7 wisemen,” whose knowledge, Pico
Rosicrucian What was the ultimate goal of man’s asserts, was later detected by al-Kindi,
Digest existential freedom? Imagining God Roger Bacon, and William of Paris.” 9
No. 2 addressing Adam, Pico attributes to Man However, the great themes of Magia
2012
Page 38
 and Cabala echo through the Oration. of man’s ability to operate on the mundane
he “ancient theology of Hermes world through the knowledge and
Trismegistus” and “the occult mysteries application of correspondences between
of the Hebrews” ofer the prime means the higher and lower worlds. As Frances
of man’s promotion to the divine Yates has suggested, this attitude anticipates
realms. “As the farmer weds his elms the exploration and conidence of natural
to vines, even so does the magus wed science. However, their emphasis on the
earth to heaven.” he Oration alludes hierarchy of spiritual intermediaries in
to esoteric knowledge known only to the form of attributes, letters, numbers,
the few. Pico speaks of occult Hebraic transmutation of the soul indicate that
law, vouchsafed only to initiates, and he this philosophy of nature was intimately
recalls the symbolism of the sphinxes bound up with religious experience and
on Egyptian temples, indicating that an approach to God. Renaissance magic is
mystic doctrines should be kept secret thus a form of sacred science.
from the common herd.10
Pico’s subsequent career was turbulent.
As soon as he published his nine hundred *Editor’s Note: his article is the second half of
theses, several Roman theologians raised the chapter entitled “Italian Renaissance Magic
an outcry about their heretical character, and Cabala” in he Western Esoteric Traditions:
and Pope Innocent VIII appointed a A Historical Introduction by Nicholas
commission to examine them. Pico was Goodrick-Clarke. he irst half of the chapter,
summoned to appear several times before published in the Rosicrucian Digest, Volume
this commission, and several of the theses 90, Number 1, 2012, introduced readers to
the Neoplatonism of Renaissance Florence and
were condemned. Undaunted, in May
the eminent Neoplatonist, Marsilio Ficino.
1487 Pico published, together with part
of the Oration, an apologia defending the
condemned theses. his challenge involved
him in fresh diiculties, and bishops with
inquisitorial powers were appointed to
deal with his case. In July, Pico made a
formal submission and retraction to the
commission, and in August the pope
issued a bull condemning all the theses and
forbidding their publication. Lorenzo de’
Medici interceded for Pico with the pope,
and Pico was thereafter permitted to live
in Florence under Medici protection. On
17 November 1494, the day the armies
of King Charles VIII of France entered
Florence, Pico died of a fever. He was
thirty-one.11
Ficino and Pico were seminal igures in
the revival of Hermeticism, Neoplatonism,
magic, and Kabbalah in Renaissance No. 54, Opus Mag. Cab ii.
Europe. heir interest in the power of
sympathetic and Cabalistic magic to efect
changes in nature signal a new appreciation
Page 39
 ENDNOTES
1. Frances Yates ofers a summary chapter on Pico’s life the West: Pico’s 900 heses (1486), Medieval and
and contribution to Kabbalistic magic in Giordano Renaissance Studies 167 (Tempe: Arizona State
Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, pp. 84-116. University Press, 1998).
Cf. Paul Oskar Kristeller, Eight Philosophers of the 4. F. A. Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition,
Renaissance, pp. 54-71. For his Jewish teacher, see pp. 91, 95.
Chaim Wirszubiski ‘s introduction to his edition of 5. Ibid., pp. 96-97.
Flavius Mithridates, Sermo de Passione Dei (Jerusalem, 6. Ibid., pp. 98-102.
1963) and his article “Giovanni Pico’s Companion to 7. he Oration on the Dignity of Man is discussed by
Kabbalistic Symbolism,” in Studies in Mysticism and Kristeller, Eight Philosophers of the Renaissance, pp.
Religion, presented to G. G. Scholem (Jerusalem, 65-68. See also the full English translation of the
1967), pp. 353-362. text and commentary by Kristeller in he Renaissance
2. For a helpful account of the historical development of Philosophy of Man, edited by Ernst Cassirer, Paul
Jewish Kabbalah as a current of Western esotericism, Oskar Kristeller, John Herman Randall (Chicago:
see Kocku von Stuckrad, Western Esotericism, pp. University of Chicago Press, 1956), pp. 215-256.
31-41. Deinitive studies of are ofered by Gershom 8. Kristeller, Renaissance Philosophy of Man, p. 223; the
Scholem, Kabbalah (New York: Penguin/ Meridian, quotation refers to the sixth passage in the Asclepius
1978), and Origins of the Kabbalah, edited by R. J. in Brian P. Copenhaver, Hermetica: he Greek Corpus
Werblowsky, translated by A. Arkush (Princeton, N Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a New English
J .: Princeton University Press, 1990); Moshe Idel, Translation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven, Conn.: Yale 1992), p. 69.
University Press, 1988); he Early Kabbalah, edited 9. S. A. Farmer, Syncretism in the West, pp. 204-205,
by Joseph Dan, translated by R. C. Kiener (New ofers an outline of Pico’s irst 400 theses which
York: Paulist Press, 1986). trace philosophy from the Latin scholastics back
3. Kristeller, Eight Philosophers of the Renaissance, pp. to the harmonious ancients and “Hebrew Cabalist
61f, takes up the theme of Pico’s syncretism and wisemen.” his quasihistorical survey relects Pico’s
interest in establishing “concordance” (Faivre’s ifth insistence on correspondences within an emanational
characteristic of esotericism) between the Kabbalah cosmology. Cf. Oration, in he Renaissance Philosophy
and the Bible within a prisca theologia identiied with of Man, pp. 242-249.
Rosicrucian Hermes and Zoroaster. A substantial monograph on 10. Kristeller, Renaissance Philosophy of Man, p. 250.
Digest Pico’s thought with special reference to his Roman 11. Kristeller, Eight Italian Philosophers of the Renaissance,
No. 2 debate and the full text of his nine hundred theses pp. 56-57.
2012 is ofered by Stephen Alan Farmer, Syncretism in
Page 40
 The Kabbalistic Order
of the Rose-Croix
Christian Rebisse, FRC
In his book, Rosicrucian History and Mysteries, Christian Rebisse describes the many
traditions that contributed to what would become the Rosicrucian Order, AMORC and to
some extent the Traditional Martinist Order. he excerpt below briely describes the history
of the Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Croix and its founders who greatly inluenced both
traditions.

he Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Croix. Seated in front, from left to

right, are Papus, Joséphin Péladan, and Stanislas de Guaita.

W
hile Joséphin Péladan was During this period, the friendship
savoring the success of his between Josephin Péladan and Stanislas de
first novel, his brother Adrien Guaita took shape, and upon the advice
died on September 29, 1885, poisoned by of the writer, the latter got in touch with
a medicine improperly measured by his Firmin Boissin. On August 12, 1886,
pharmacist. An article announcing his death, Stanislas de Guaita informed Joséphin that
in the journal Le Messager de Toulouse, he had received a long and learned letter
described him as a Rosicrucian. The text from his friend “Bois+sin.” he way in
was signed “a Catholic R+C.” Behind this which he wrote this name, with a cross in
signature we must see Firmin Boissin, the its center, is strange, and it is interesting
editor-in-chief of this journal. Let us add to note that after this correspondence
that the latter knew the photographer Clovis Stanislas de Guaita signed his letters with
Lassalle, whom he met through the printer the expression “R+C” and called Joséphin
Paul Édouard Privat. In turn, H. Spencer Péladan “my dear Frater.”1 Can it be
Lewis was to meet Clovis Lassalle many years concluded that he had been received into
later in Toulouse. the order by Firmin Boissin?

Page 41
 Events seem to have come to a head at its august traditions resolved to restore it
this time. Many occultists then living in by consolidating it on new foundations ...
Paris were members of the heosophical and now life cycles throughout the mystical
Society, but they remained disappointed by body of the rejuvenated colossus.”2
its excessively Eastern teachings. Included hus, moving from Toulouse to Paris
among them was Gérard Encausse (1865- (1887-1888), the restored Rose-Croix
1916), better known as Papus. As a student became the Kabbalistic Order of the
of medicine he had the opportunity to work Rose-Croix. his order was directed by a
with Dr. Jules Luys, who had done some supreme council of twelve members, of
research in hypnosis at La Charité Hospital whom six remained unknown, their role
in Paris. It was there that he met Augustin consisting of rebuilding the organization
Chaboseau (1868-1946), with whom he if it were to be dissolved for any reason
soon reorganized the Martinist Order. whatsoever. Among those who were
In 1888, after the death of its president, members of the “Council of Twelve”
Louis Dramart, the French division of at one time or another, let us mention
the heosophical Society fragmented. He Stanislas de Guaita, Joséphin Péladan,
published his Traité élémentaire de science Papus, A. Gabrol, Henry horion, F.-Ch.
occult (Elementary Treatise on Occultism; Barlet, Augustin Chaboseau, Victor-Émile
1888), a book with which he wanted to Michelet, Sédir, and Marc Haven. he
restore Western esotericism and to put order was structured around a hierarchy
occultism on an equal basis with subjects of three degrees acquired by examination
taught in the universities. (Bachelor of Kabbalah, Master of
Afterwards, in September 1889, Kabbalah, Doctor of Kabbalah), and entry
Pierre-Gaëtan Leymarie (1817-1901),
who directed the spiritist movement since
the death of Allan Kardec, organized an
international spiritist and spiritualistic
congress in which Papus, F.-Ch. Barlet,
Augustin Chaboseau, and Chamuel
participated. his important event allowed
occultists to free themselves from the
heosophical movement, especially as the
journal L’Initiation, launched by Papus
and his friends in October 1888, began
to experience some success. Seeking to
place itself under the auspices of a secular
tradition, the occultists attempted to
make Rosicrucianism and Martinism the
pillars of a new temple that they wished
to erect. Joséphin Péladan and Stanislas de
Guaita were associated with this project,
and at the time when the Rose-Croix was
ebbing away in Toulouse, they made the
decision to restore it. “he ancient order
of the Rose-Croix being on the point of Joséphin Péladan.
Rosicrucian
Digest going dormant, three years ago [the author
No. 2 wrote in 1890], when two direct heirs of
2012
Page 42
into the order was reserved to Martinists reproached Papus for his taste in occultism
having achieved the S.I. degree. and magic. Along with Abbé Alta, one of
the eminent members of the Kabbalistic
he Rose-Croix of the Temple and the Order of the Rose-Croix, Joséphin
Grail reproached Papus for confusing occultism
and esotericism. On February 17, 1891,
hanks to the journal L’lnitiation, the Péladan wrote a letter to Papus, published
order became well known, and before in the April issue of the journal L’lnitiation,
long a troop of eager occultists came that severed their relationship.
knocking at the temple door. Stanislas Heir to a tradition that he felt was on
de Guaita, who lived like a hermit in his the verge of losing its mission, Péladan
irst loor apartment on Trudaine Avenue, decided to work along diferent lines and
allowed Papus to organize matters. But thus founded in May 1891 the Order of
the capricious personality of an artist such the Rose-Croix du Temple et du Graal
as Joséphin Péladan was hardly suited (also called the Order of the Rose-Croix
for associating with such a strong-willed Catholique du Temple et du Graal), which
organizer as Papus. he latter wanted he had already outlined in Le Vice suprême,
to open up the order and broaden it. In his irst novel, in 1884. In June 1891, he
contrast, Joséphin Péladan wanted to designated himself as the Grand Master
reserve access to carefully selected initiates of this new order, using the name of Sâr
and was not at all in accord with the Mérodack Péladan. his event was given
Masonic aspect that Papus wanted to considerable space in many articles for Le
impose upon the order. he positions of Figaro, and this great publicity profoundly
these two men were reconciled only with irritated Papus and his friends who
diiculty, especially as Joséphin Péladan denounced Péladan’s split.

ENDNOTES
1. Lettres inédites de Stanislas de Guaita au Sâr Joséphin Péladan, edited by Édouard Bertholet and Émile Dantinne
(Neuchatel: Éditions rosicruciennes, 1952).
2. Stanislas de Guaita, “Au seuil du mystère,” Essais de sciences maudites (Paris: Geroges Carré, 1890) p. 158.

Symbol of the Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Croix.

Page 43
 The Kabbalah:
Secret Tradition of the West
Papus
Gérard Encausse, MD (1865-1916), better known by his mystical pseudonym, Papus, was one
of the co-founders of the Martinist Order and the Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Croix (1888).
As noted in the article on page 41, the Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Croix was structured
around a hierarchy of three degrees acquired by examination – Bachelor of Kabbalah, Master
of Kabbalah, and Doctor of Kabbalah.
he following text is an excerpt from the book written by Papus entitled he Kabbalah: Secret
Tradition of the West. Translation by the staf of the Rosicrucian Digest.

Papus.

he Kabbalah 1 heoretical Kabbalah

N
ow we come to the superior part he theoretical part has been
of the tradition, to the Secret considered from quite diferent points
Doctrine or Kabbalah, the of view by the authors who examine this
veritable soul of this tradition. question. Let us briely examine the most
It can be seen from the table given important principles of their work.
(Table No. 1) that the theoretical part of he irst group of researchers, the most
the Kabbalah is the only section known to numerous, follows the divisions given by
Rosicrucian us, the practical or magic parts still being the Kabbalists themselves. his is the plan
Digest
No. 2 kept secret, or scarcely being touched upon followed by Mr. Ad. Franck in his ine
2012 in some rare manuscripts. work (1843), by Eliphas Lévi (1853), and
Page 44
 Papus: Epistemology of The Kabbalah

Tr a d i t i o n s Word.—Writing.—
connected with the How to read and
MATERIAL part of write the text. MASSORA
the text. Some mysterious
(Fixation of the text). meanings of the sacred
characters.

BODY
Legislative part. Primitive tradition
THE LAW of Moses and the great MISHNAH
Diverse rules. prophets. TALMUD
Customs. (General Code of
Commentaries on THE LAW)
connected with the TORAH.

Ceremonies.
Civil life. this tradition. GHEMARAH
Various TRADITIONS

LIFE (Jurisprudence)

Bereschit. Generation,
Tr a d i t i o n s mystical constitution
connected with the Religious and
THEORY
and relationship of the SEPHER YETZIRAH
SPIRITUAL part of philosophical part. 3 worlds. (heoretical
the text. Kabbalah);
(Explanation of the THE SECRET
text). DOCTRINE Mercavah. Mystical
study of the divine world ZOHAR
Esoterism of the and its relationships. THE KABBALAH
Bible.
SOUL Synthetic hieroglyphism.
Evolution. — Division. (Virtually nothing
PRACTICE

Mystic transposition of the published).

letters and numbers. TAROT

Magic manuscripts
attributed to Solomon. CLAVICULA (Practical Kabbalah)
(Practical magic). (Schemamphoras)

Table No. 1.

by Mr. Isidore Loeb (entry Cabbale in the Other writers, such as Mr. S. Munk
Grande Encyclopédie). divide the Kabbalah in the following
he principal subjects of mystic fashion:
speculation of the time are the work of KABBALAH
the chariot (maasse mercaba), by allusion
1. Symbolic Mystic calculations
to Ezekiel’s Chariot, and work of creation
hemurah
(maasse bereschit).
Gematria
he work of the chariot, which is also Notarikon
the great work (dabar gadol), discusses the 2. Positive, Dogmatic Angels and demons
beings of the supernatural world, God,
Divisions
the powers, the fundamental ideas, the
Trasmigration of souls
“heavenly family” as it is sometimes called;
3. Speculative and Sephiroth, etc.
the work of creation discusses generation metaphysical
and the nature of the terrestrial world.
As can be seen, Mr. S. Munck tends
Here is this division: toward the old division adopted by certain
Kabbalists, notably Kircher.
KABBALAH: Maasse Mercaba ZOHAR (work
of the chariot) But the most complete division, in
Maasse Bereschit S E P H E R our opinion, of the Kabbalah is that
YETZIRAH of Molitor: this is the one which we
(work of creation)
ourselves have adopted in the general
Page 45
 KABBALAH
THEORETICAL BERESCHIT First degree.
Sepher Yetzirah. Historical Legends.
Haggadah.
MERCABA Second degree.
Zohar. Practical morals.
PRACTICAL Virtually nothing written hird degree.
MAGICAL Mystical doctrine.
MANUSCRIPTS
(Clavicula) (Practical magic.)

table given previously, for it has the merit hese two conditions call for the
of conforming in a general way to the initiation of a disciple, regardless of age or
generally adopted divisions while going status; it sometimes happened that a father
beyond them, complementing them as it would instruct his children while they
were by the recognition of a practical part. were very young.
Traditional teaching, triune like human his high tradition is called Kabbalah
nature and human needs, was at the same (in Hebrew, KIBBEL, to join together).
time historical, moral, and mystical; thus Within its exterior form the word conceals
the sacred writing contained a triple sense: the aptitude of the soul to conceive
supernatural ideas.
1. he literal, historical sense he Kabbalah was divided into two
(pashut), which corresponds to parts: the theoretical and the practical.
the body and to the square of the 1. Patriarchal traditions on the
temple; sacred mystery of God and the
2. Moral teachings (drusch), to the divine persons;
soul or the sacred; 2. On spiritual creation and the fall
3. And last, the mystical sense (sod), of the angels;
which represents the spirit and 3. On the origin of chaos, matter,
the holy of holies. and the renovation of the world
he irst, composed of certain during the six days of creation;
stories taken from the lives of the 4. On the creation of the visible
ancient patriarchs, was transmitted from person [humanity], his fall, and
generation to generation, like so many the divine ways leading to his
popular legends. It is found scattered reinstatement.
here and there in the form of comments, Otherwise stated, it treated:
in Biblical manuscripts and Chaldean • he work of creation (Masse
paraphrases. Bereschit).
he moral sense looked at everything • he heavenly chariot (Mercabah)
from a practical point of view, while the he work of creation is contained in
mystical, rising above the visible transitory the Sepher Yetzirah.
world, hovered unceasingly in the sphere We were responsible for the irst
of the eternal. French translation of this book (1887).
Rosicrucian he mystical sense thus required a Since then, a new translation has appeared,
Digest
No. 2
secret discipline, exacting an uncommon more developed, thanks to more complete
2012 piety of soul. originals, made by Mr. Mayer-Lambert.
Page 46
We recommend this very serious work have space here to give a translation of this
with great enthusiasm. Only one regret: book (translations already exist in Latin
the absence of a bibliography which would and in English), let us be content with the
have been most useful for all concerned. excellent summary of Mr. Isidore Loeb in
So that the reader may, in so far as the Grande Encyclopédie (entry Cabbale).
possible, supplement our translation,
which is to be found further on, we he Zohar is a cabbalistic
provide here a table below summarizing commentary on the Pentateuch;
the supplementary developments of the it is not certain that we possess
Sepher Yetzirah. We have modiied the it in its original form, and the
relation of the planets and the days of the form we do possess may be the
week, since the earlier relations seem to us work of several people. It is a vast
to have been erroneously established due compilation including, along with
to a poor understanding of the connection the ideas of the writer or writers,
between the order of the planets and the other more or less ancient works,
order of the days. he Egyptian clock such as the Book of the Secret, he
given by Alliette (Etteila) clearly shows the Great Assembly, he Lesser Assembly,
source of this error. he Book of Heavenly Tents, he
he work of the heavenly chariot is Faithful Shepherd, he Discourse of
contained in the Zohar. Since we do not a Young Man [Person], and others.
LETTER UNIVERSE YEAR MAN MORAL WORLD
Temperate (spring or
‫א‬ Alef AIR Atmosphere Chest Rule of Equilibrium
autumn)
‫מ‬ Mem WATER Earth Winter Stomach Plane of Fault
‫ש‬ Shin EARTH Heaven Summer Head Plane of Worth
‫ב‬ Bet Saturn Saturday SATURDAY Mouth Life and Death
‫ג‬ Gimel Jupiter Sunday THURSDAY Right eye Peace and Misfortune
‫ד‬ Dalet Mars Monday TUESDAY Left eye Wisdom and Foolishness
‫כ‬ Kaf Sun Tuesday SUNDAY Right nostril Richness and Poverty
‫פ‬ Pay Venus Wednesday FRIDAY Left nostril Culture and Barrenness
‫ר‬ Resh Mercury hursday WEDNESDAY Right ear Grace and Unsightliness
‫ת‬ Tav Moon Friday MONDAY Left ear Domination and Servitude
‫ה‬ Hay Aries March Liver Sight and Blindness
‫ו‬ Vav Taurus April Bladder Hearing and Deafness
Smell and Absence of
‫ז‬ Zayin Gemini May Spleen
Smell
‫ח‬ Chet Cancer June Loins Speech and Muteness
‫ט‬ Tet Leo July Right kidney Fulness and Hunger
‫י‬ Yud Virgo August Left kidney Coitus and Castration
‫ל‬ Lamed Libra September Large intestine Activity and Powerlessness
Soundness of Step and
‫נ‬ Nun Scorpio October Small intestine
Lameness
Anger and the Removal
‫ס‬ Samekh Sagittarius November Right hand
of the Liver
Laughter and the
‫ע‬ Ayin Capricorn December Left hand
Removal of the Spleen
hought and the
‫צ‬ Tzaddi Aquarius January Right foot
Removal of the Heart
‫ק‬ Kuf Pisces February Left foot Sleep and Languor

Page 47
 Kabbalah and
Contemporary Cosmology:
Discovering the Resonance
Daniel C. Matt, Ph.D.
Daniel C. Matt, Ph.D., one of the world’s foremost authorities on Jewish mysticism, served as
Professor of Jewish Spirituality at the Graduate heological Union in Berkeley, California for
more than twenty years. He received his Ph.D. from Brandeis University and has also taught
at Stanford University and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

his article is based on Dr. Matt’s book God and the Big Bang: Discovering Harmony
between Science and Spirituality, published by Jewish Lights. Dr. Matt is also the author of
he Essential Kabbalah and of the multi-volume annotated translation of the Zohar entitled
he Zohar: Pritzker Edition. Reprinted with permission of the author.

I
n the beginning was the big bang, mix of matter produced by cycles of stars
fourteen billion years ago. The – stars forming and exploding. We along
primordial vacuum was devoid of with everything else are literally made of
matter, but not really empty – rather, in a stardust.
state of minimum energy, pregnant with he Earth took shape and began
potential, teeming with virtual particles. cooling down about four and a half
Through a quantum fluctuation, a sort of billion years ago. By about a billion
bubble, in this vacuum, there emerged a years later, various microorganisms had
hot, dense seed, smaller than a proton, yet developed. Exactly how, no one knows.
containing all the mass and energy of our We do know that earth’s early atmosphere
universe. In less than a trillionth of a second, was composed of hydrogen, water vapor,
this seed cooled and expanded wildly, faster carbon dioxide and simple gases such as
than the speed of light, inflating into the size ammonia and methane. In such a climate,
of a grapefruit. The expansion then slowed organic compounds may have synthesized
down, but it has never stopped. spontaneously.
In its irst few seconds, the universe Or perhaps life drifted to Earth in the
was an undiferentiated soup of matter form of spores from Mars or from another
and radiation. It took a few minutes for solar system in our galaxy or another galaxy
things to cool down enough for nuclei to in the universe. However life began, all its
form, and at least 300,000 years for atoms forms share similar genetic codes and can
to form. For eons, clouds of gas expanded. be traced back to a common ancestor. All
Huge glimmering balls of hot gas formed living beings are cousins.
into stars. Deep within these stars, nuclear We humans like to think of ourselves as
reactions gave birth to elements such as the pinnacle of creation, and it is true that
carbon and iron. When the stars grew old, we are the most complicated things in the
they exploded, spewing these elements into universe. Our brain contains one hundred
Rosicrucian the universe. Eventually this matter was billion cells, linked by one hundred trillion
Digest recycled into new solar systems. Our solar synaptic connections. Yet we are part of
No. 2
2012 system is one example of this recycling, a the evolutionary process, descended from
Page 48
bacteria who lived three-and-a-half billion growing exponentially in time. Each baby
years ago. In our mother’s womb each universe is born in what can be considered
of us retraces the entire developmental a big bang – or should we say a little bang?
span from amoeba to human being. Our – a luctuation of the vacuum followed by
species – Homo sapiens – is a primate that inlation.
developed in Africa, splitting away from If Linde’s speculations are correct,
the chimpanzee line about seven million perhaps we should translate the
years ago. We still share with the chimps opening words of Genesis not as “In
99 percent of our active genes. If you’ll the beginning...,” but “In a beginning,
pardon the expression, we are an improved God created heaven and earth.” In fact,
ape. this represents a more literal rendering
he big bang is a theory, not a fact. To of the original Hebrew: Be-Reshit: “In a
cosmologists, it ofers the most convincing beginning.”
explanation of the evolution of the Science has no consensus on the
universe, “the best approximation to truth ultimate origin. Some theories espouse
that we currently possess.” It may be proven a well-deined beginning; others, like
wrong. More likely, it will eventually Stephen Hawking’s, do not. But both
be enfolded within a larger theory. he suggest a radically new reading of Genesis.
scientiic consensus is that the big bang If God spoke the world into being, the
theory is correct within its speciic domain: divine language is energy; the alphabet,
the evolution of our universe from perhaps elementary particles; God’s grammar,
one-billionth of a second after its origins the laws of nature. Many scientists have
up to the present. Whatever happened sensed a spiritual dimension in the search
before that irst fraction of a second lies for these laws. For Einstein, discerning the
beyond the limits of the theory. he term laws of nature was a way to discover how
“big bang” suggests a deinite beginning God thinks.
a inite time ago, but the theory does not But does the universe have a purpose?
extend that far. he ultimate origin of the Is there meaning to our existence? Why
universe is still unfathomed. should we live ethically? Here, cosmology
One version of the theory, known as cannot help us very much. Darwin
eternal inlation was developed by Andrei intensiies our problem. Are we diferent
Linde. his version portrays a universe from other animals? Can we transcend
that, by continually reproducing itself, violence and savagery? As the wife of an
attains immortality. Our universe is just Anglican bishop remarked, upon hearing
one of countless baby universes, one of of Darwin’s theory: “Descended from apes!
countless inlating, self-reproducing balls My dear, let us hope that it is not true; but
or “bubbles.” In each of these bubbles, if it is, let us pray that it will not become
the initial conditions difer and diverse generally known.” Her comment echoes
kinds of elementary particles interact in the fear that knowing the true nature of
unimagined ways. Perhaps, diferent laws our ancestors threatens to unravel the
of physics apply in each. social fabric.
Not all the domains inlate into large We have lost our myth. A myth is a
bubbles, but those that do, like ours, story, imagined or true, that helps us make
dominate the volume of the universe and our experience comprehensible by ofering
sprout other bubbles in a perpetual chain a construction of reality. It is a narrative
reaction. he entire universe is a tree of life, that wrests order from chaos. We are not
a cluster of bubbles attached to each other, content to see events as unconnected, as

Page 49
 inexplicable. We crave to understand the precise plan for creation, worked out in
underlying order in the world. A myth advance. By an intricate and unrepeatable
tells us why things are the way they are and combination of chance and necessity,
where they came from. Such an account is humanity has evolved from and alongside
not only comfortable, assuring and socially countless other forms of life over billions of
useful; it is essential. Without a myth, there years. Ultimately, our evolutionary history
is no meaning or purpose to life. here is is uplifting: It enables us to see that we are
just vast emptiness. part of a wholeness, a oneness.
Myths do more than explain. hey To be “religious” means, in the words
guide mental processes, conditioning how of a contemporary physicist, to have an
we think, even how we perceive. Myths intuitive feeling of the unity of the cosmos.
come to life by serving as models for his oneness is grounded in scientiic fact:
human behavior. On Friday evening, as We are made of the same stuf as all of
my family begins Shabbat (the Sabbath), creation. Everything that is, was, or will
I sometimes imagine God, having created be started of together as one ininitesimal
the world in one very packed week inally point: the cosmic seed.
taking a break. According to the Bible, Life has since branched out, but this
Shavat va-yinnafash, “God rested and was should not blind us to its underlying
refreshed.” his mythical image enables unity. he deepest marvel is the unity
me to pause, to slow down and appreciate in diversity, the vast array of material
creation. By observing Shabbat, I am manifestations of energy. Becoming aware
imitating the divine. Order re-emerges out of the multifaceted unity can help us
of the impending chaos of life. learn how to live in harmony with other
What do we do when the myths of human beings and with all beings, with all
tradition have been undone, when the our fellow transformations of energy and
God of the Bible seems so unbelievable? Is matter.
there really someone “up there” in control, If the big bang is our new creation
charting the course of history, reaching myth, the story that explains how the
down to rescue those in need, tallying universe began, then who is God? “God”
up our good and bad deeds for reward is a name we give to the oneness of it all.
and punishment? Many people have shed How can you name oneness? How
the security of traditional belief; they are can you name the unnamable? he Jewish
more likely to experience a gaping, aching mystical tradition, the Kabbalah, ofers a
void than the satisfying fullness of God’s number of possibilities. One is Ein Sof,
presence. If they believe in anything, literally: “there is no end.” Ein Sof is the
perhaps it’s science and technology. And Ininite, or, to borrow a phrase from the
what does science provide in exchange for Christian mystic Meister Eckhart, the God
this belief? Progress in every ield except beyond God.
for one: the ultimate meaning of life. Some Sometimes the kabbalists use a more
scientists insist that there is no meaning. radical name than Ein Sof. his is the name
As one leading physicist has written, “he ayin – nothingness. We encounter this
more we know about the universe, the bizarre term among Christian mystics as
more it is evident that it is pointless and well: John Scotus Erigena calls God nihil;
meaningless.” Eckhart, nihts; St. John of the Cross, nada.
he big bang is a contemporary To call God “Nothingness” does not mean
Rosicrucian
Digest Creation story. Energy turns into matter, that God does not exist. Rather, it conveys
No. 2 which turns back into energy. here is no the idea that God is no thing. God animates
2012
Page 50
all things and cannot be contained by any Physicists call this point a singularity:
of them. God is the oneness that is no an ininitely dense point in spacetime. A
particular thing, no thingness. singularity is both destructive and creative.
his mystical nothingness is neither Anything falling into a singularity merges
empty nor barren; it is fertile and with it, losing its identity, while energy
overlowing, engendering the myriad forms emerging from a singularity can become
of life. he mystics teach that the universe anything. he laws of physics do not apply
emanated from divine nothingness. to the split second in which energy or mass
Similarly, as we have seen, cosmologists emerges.
speak of the quantum vacuum, teeming According to the thirteenth-century
with potential, engendering the cosmic kabbalist, Moses de Leon,
seed. his vacuum is anything but empty
—a seething froth of virtual particles, he beginning of existence is the
constantly appearing and disappearing. secret concealed point. his is the
How did the universe emerge out beginning of all the hidden things,
of proliic nothingness? According to which spread out from there and
Kabbalah and classical big bang theory, emanate, according to their species.
this transition was marked by a single From a single point you can extend the
point. dimensions of all things.

Visible View of Pillar and Jets HH 901/902. NASA, ESA, and M. Livio and the
Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI).
Page 51
 As emanation proceeds, as God begins ininitesimal point from which the cosmos
to unfold, the point expands into a circle. lashed into existence.
Similarly, ever since the big bang, our One kabbalist, Shim’on Lavi,
universe has been expanding. We know understands expansion as part of the
this thanks to the astronomer Edwin rhythm of creation:
Hubble, who measured the speed at which
With the appearance of the light,
other galaxies are moving away from us.
the universe expanded.
In 1929 Hubble determined that the
farther a galaxy is from us, the faster it is With the concealment of the light,
moving away. he universe is expanding the things that exist were created in all
in all directions. It’s not that the universe their variety.
is expanding within space. Space itself is his is the mystery of the act of
expanding. Creation.
he most dramatic consequence of One who understands will
Hubble’s discovery is what it tells us about understand.
the origin of our universe. Just play the
Hubble tape in reverse: If the universe is When light lashed forth, time and
now expanding, that means it was once space began. But the early universe was
much smaller. How small? According to an undiferentiated soup of energy and
classical big bang theory, if we go back matter. How did matter emerge from
far enough in spacetime and retrace the the stew? he mystic writes that the light
paths of the galaxies and their formation, was concealed. A scientist would say that
the entire mass-energy of the universe energy congealed. Matter is frozen energy.
contracts into the size of a singularity – the No nucleus or atom could form until some

Rosicrucian
Digest Hubble’s Largest Galaxy Portrait Ofers a New High-Deinition View. NASA, ESA, K. Kuntz (JHU), F. Bresolin
No. 2 (University of Hawaii), J. Trauger (Jet Propulsion Lab), J. Mould (NOAO), Y.-H. Chu (University of Illinois,
2012 Urbana), and STScI.
Page 52
energy cooled down enough that it could in Galilee, the most famous kabbalist who
be bound and bundled into stable particles ever lived – Isaac Luria – pondered creation
of matter. and asked himself, “What came before?”
Einstein discovered the equivalence of He believed there was only Ein Sof, God as
mass and energy. Ultimately, matter is not ininity. But if Ein Sof pervaded all space,
distinct from energy, but simply energy how could there be room for anything
that has temporarily assumed a particular other than God? Luria concluded that the
pattern. Matter is energy in a tangible irst act of creation was not emanation,
form; both are diferent states of a single but withdrawal: “Before the creation of
continuum, diferent names for two forms the universe, Ein Sof withdrew itself into
of the same thing. its essence, from itself to itself within itself.
Like the physicist, the mystic, too, Within its essence, it left an empty space,
is fascinated by the intimate relation of in which it could emanate and create.”
matter and energy, though the mystical his is tsimtsum, which literally
description is composed in a diferent key. means “contraction,” but here suggests
Material existence emerges out of ayin, withdrawal, a withdrawal by which God
the pool of divine energy. Ultimately, the made room for something other than
world is not other than God, for this divine God. he primordial void carved out
energy is concealed within all forms of by tsimtsum became the site of creation:
being. Were it not concealed, there could no larger than an ininitesimal point in
be no individual existence; everything relation to Ein Sof, yet spacious enough to
would dissolve back into oneness, or house the cosmos. But the void was not
nothingness. really empty: It retained a trace, a residue
Around the middle of the sixteenth of the light of Ein Sof, just as the vacuum
century in the mountaintop city of Safed preceding the big bang was not completely
empty, but rather in a state of minimum
energy: pregnant with creative potential
and virtual particles.
As Ein Sof began to unfold, a ray of
light was channeled into the void through
vessels. Everything went smoothly at irst,
but some of the vessels, less translucent,
could not withstand the power of the light.
hey shattered. Most of the light returned
to its ininite source, “to the mother’s
womb.” But the rest, falling as sparks along
with shards of the shattered vessels, was
eventually trapped in material existence.
Our task, according to Kabbalah, is to
liberate these sparks of light and restore
them to divinity. By living ethically
and spiritually, we raise the sparks and
thereby bring about tikkun, the “repair” or
mending of the cosmos.
If the vessels had not broken, our
world of multiplicity would not exist. We
exist because we have lost oneness.

Page 53
 Modern cosmology has a theory that To us today, the fundamental
parallels the breaking of the vessels: the forces of nature appear distinct: gravity,
theory of broken symmetry. electromagnetism and two other forces
Symmetry can be unstable. Picture known as the strong and weak nuclear
yourself at an elegant wedding dinner, forces. he balance between these forces
sitting with a dozen other guests around determines the existence and behavior
a circular table. Champagne glasses have of everything in the visible universe.
been placed precisely between each dinner Originally all four forces were linked, and
plate and the next: perfect right-left today scientists dream of inding a single
symmetry. A waiter ills the glasses with set of equations describing all four. By
champagne and everyone sits, waiting for colliding subatomic particles, physicists
someone else to lift a glass. You’re a little have discovered that at extremely high
thirsty and, realizing that the pink bubbles temperatures the diferences between the
will not last forever, you decide to take a forces begin to disappear.
sip. But which champagne glass should One more act of imagination. Imagine
you pick? Not fully versed in the rules of yourself journeying back in time, closer
etiquette, you could as easily choose the and closer to the moment of the big
glass to your left as the one to your right. bang. he further you go, the hotter and
Either way, as soon as you reach for one or denser the universe becomes, and broken
the other, the symmetry is broken. Unless symmetries are restored. You go back
everyone else does what you do, someone millions and billions of years. Finally you
will have to reach across the table to get a reach the tiniest fraction of time a physicist
glass. can imagine: 10-43 second after the big
Let’s take a more mundane example. bang, a ten-millionth of a trillionth of a
Imagine that you’re holding a handful of trillionth of a trillionth of a second after
sharpened pencils, just snug enough that the beginning. Earlier than this is hard
they stand on their points. Now let go. For to probe, because the density of matter
a moment, the pencils remain balanced becomes so great that the structure, and
and rotationally symmetrical. Looking perhaps the meaning, of space and time
down from above, you see a perfect circle break down. At this point, all interactions
of pencil erasers. But the symmetry is between the fundamental forces are
quickly broken, as the pencils fall into a indistinguishable. Perfect symmetry.
tangle of thick pickup sticks. How did the symmetry of the beginning
he pencils are a metaphor for the become so disguised over the course of
universe. he jumble of fallen pencils is time? As the universe expands and starts to
the universe today, while the symmetrical cool, its radiation and particles lose energy.
bundle is the universe in its original state. he various forces become distinct.
One of the challenges of science is to Meanwhile, matter is also losing its
discover the symmetry hidden within the oneness. By the time the universe is just
tangle of ordinary life. one billionth of a second old, there are four
he universe began in an extremely forces and two dozen kinds of elementary
hot state of utmost simplicity and particles. his fracturing of symmetry
symmetry. As it expands and cools, this creates the particles of matter and energy
perfect symmetry is broken, giving rise found today around us – and within us.
Rosicrucian
Digest to the world of diversity and structure we Perfect symmetry sounds alluring, but
No. 2 inhabit. it is sterile. If the primal force had not broken
2012
Page 54
 Shevirat haKeilim – Shattering of the Vessels. Original oil painting by Victoria
Franck Wetsch, SRC.

into four forces, the universe would be a inner space, challenging us to retrace our
very diferent place, if it existed at all. Tiny path to oneness and to live in the light of
deviations from complete uniformity now what we discover.
give rise to nuclei, atoms and molecules; As we have seen, the Jewish mystics
then galaxies, stars, planets and people. We picture divine sparks in every thing that
exist today in our present condition, with exists. A scientist would say there is energy
all our laws and imperfections, because of latent in subatomic particles. he spiritual
broken symmetry, just as Kabbalah teaches task is to raise the sparks, to restore the
that our jumbled, blemished reality derives world to God, to become aware that every
from the breaking of the vessels. single thing we do or see or touch or
Broken symmetry and the breaking imagine is part of the oneness, a pattern
of the vessels are distinct theories, each of energy. Raising the sparks is a powerful
generated by a diferent approach to the metaphor; it transforms religion from a list
question of the origin of the universe: of dos and don’ts or a list of dogmas into
Yet, their resonance is intriguing. he spiritual adventure.
human mind has devised alternative God is not some separate being up
strategies – scientiic and spiritual – to there. She is right here, in the bark of a tree,
search for our origin. he two are distinct, in a friend’s voice, in a stranger’s eye. he
but complementary. Science enables us world is teeming with God. Since God is
to probe ininitesimal particles of matter in everything, you can serve God through
and unimaginable depths of outer space, everything. In looking for the divine
understanding each in light of the other, spark, we discover that what is ordinary is
as we grope our way back toward the spectacular. he holy deed is doing what
beginning. Spirituality guides us through needs to be done now.
Page 55
 he world is fractured, and God needs both human and divine. Without trusting
us to mend it. By mending the world – another person, we cannot love; without
socially, economically, politically – we trusting others, we cannot build and
mend God, whose sparks lie scattered sustain community. But how can we trust
everywhere. the cosmos, or this God of oneness?
But we shouldn’t fool ourselves. here We can trust that we are part of
will never be a complete tikkun, a complete something greater: a vast web of existence
mending of the world. hings will never be constantly expanding and evolving. When
perfect. Society will never be completely we gaze at the nighttime sky, we can ponder
just. How will it all end? Is there a Messiah that we are made of elements forged within
coming to redeem us? Messiahs captivate stars, out of particles born in the big bang.
our imagination because the world is We can sense that we are looking back
so unfair, history is so ickle. When the home. he further we gaze into space, the
Messiah comes, we are told, everything further we see back into time. If we see a
will be set right: good will inally triumph galaxy ten million light years away, we are
and evil will be eliminated. hat would be seeing that galaxy as it was ten million years
nice, but is it the way things work? ago: it has taken that long for its ancient
What is the long-range future of our light to arrive here. Beyond any star we
planet, according to science? Here’s the will ever identify, beyond any quasar,
forecast: lies the horizon of spacetime, fourteen
Our sun is about ive billion years billion light years away. But neither God
old – middle aged and reliable. But ive nor the big bang is that far away. he big
billion years from now, the hydrogen fuel bang didn’t happen somewhere out there,
in the sun’s core will run out. he core outside of us. Rather, we began inside the
will sag while the atmosphere of the sun big bang; we now embody its primordial
will mushroom, enguling several of its energy. he big bang has never stopped.
closest planets, probably including Earth.
Gradually, most of this atmosphere will And what about God? God is not an
fall away, leaving a hot, dense ball of inert object or a ixed destination. here is no
matter. deinite way to reach God. But then again,
Life will not necessarily come to an you don’t need to reach something that’s
end. By then, human beings, or whatever everywhere. God is not somewhere else,
type of intelligent life evolves from us, will hidden from us. God is right here, hidden
have developed the technology to move to from us. We are enslaved by routines.
another, safer solar system. Rushing from event to event, from one
Meanwhile, here we are. We still have chore to another, we rarely let ourselves
quite a while until the year 5 billion. here pause and notice the splendor right in front
will be no inal perfection. No one has of us. Our sense of wonder has shriveled,
arranged the future ahead of time; nothing victimized by our pace of life.
is preordained. Chance will play a leading How, then, can we ind God? A clue
role in the way things unfold, as it always is provided by one of the many names of
has. We should learn to negotiate with Shekhinah, the feminine aspect of God, the
chance. We should work on mending our divine presence. In Kabbalah She is called
own brokenness, our social fabric, our ocean, well, garden, apple orchard. She is
planet as best we can. also called zot, which means simply “this.”
Rosicrucian What kind of God can we believe God is right here, in this very moment,
Digest
No. 2 in? he Hebrew word emunah, “belief,” fresh and unexpected, taking you by
2012 originally meant trust and faithfulness, surprise. God is this.
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Salvator Mundi. From the Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians of the 16th and 17th Centuries, hand colored by H.
Spencer Lewis.

Printed on 100% recycled post-consumer

fiber using soy-based ink.
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