Collected Works (Vol. I)

APPENDIX OABALISTIC DOGMA [This short explanatory article has been specially contributed by an Adept, revered alike for his intellectual gifts and his spiritual attainments by the few to whom he permits himself to be known. Thanks to him would be impossible, but the Editor wishes to express his gratitude to the student who kindly obtained for him the introduction. No hberties have been taken with the MS., even to the retention of the capitals, but the spelling of some [Eastern names has been assimilated to the universal alphabet—e.g. Qabalah for Kabbala—with the permission of the author.| THE Evolution of Things is thus described by the Qabalists. First is Nothing, or the Absence of Things, }°%, which does not and cannot mean Negatively Existing (if such an Idea can be said to mean anything), as S. Liddell Macgregor Mathers, who misread the Text and stultified the Commentary by he Light of his own Ignorance of Hebrew and Philosophy, pretends in his Transla- tion of v. Rosenroth. Second is Without Limit 5) ]&, z.2., Infinite Space. This is the primal Dualism of Infinity; the infinitely small and the infinitely great. The Clash of these produces a finite positive Idea which happens (see MUNI, 22/ra, vol. ii., for a more careful study, though I must not be understood to indorse every Word in our Poet-Philosopher’s Thesis) to be Light, WW. This word “N& is most important. It symbolises the Universe immediately after Chaos, the Confusion or Clash of the infinite Opposites. is the Egg of Matter; is &, the Bull, or Energy-Motion ; and ‘1 is the Sun, or organised and moving System of Orbs. The three Letters of WIN thus repeat the three Ideas. The Nature of TN is thus analysed, under the figure of the ten Numbers and the 22 Letters which together compose what the Rosicrucians have diagrammatised under the name of Minutum Mundum. (See Table of Correspondences.) It will be noticed that every Number and Letter has its “‘ Correspondence ”’ in Ideas of every Sort ; so that any given Object can be analysed in Terms of the 32. If I see a blue Star, I should regard it as a Manifestation of Chesed, Water, the Moon, Salt the Alchemical Principle, Sagittarius or What not, in respect of its Blueness—one would have to decide which from other Data—and refer it to the XVIIth Key of the Taro in Respect of its Starriness. The Use of these Attributions is lengthy and various: I cannot dwell upon it: but I will give one Example. If I wish to visit the Sphere of Geburah, I use the Colours and Forces appro- priate: I go there: if the Objects which then appear to my spiritual Vision are harmonious therewith, it is one Test of their Truth. So also, to construct a Talisman, or to invoke a Spirit. The methods of discovering Dogma from sacred Words are also numerous and important : I may mention :— (a) The Doctrine of Sympathies: drawn from the total Numeration of a Word, 265