| CHAPTER V THE REDEMPTION OF TETRAGRAMMATON Symbols of the Messianic Act |
Though we cannot consciously transcend our reason, we can transcend the realized and gain
knowledge of things which we cannot explain or even understand. For instance, we know that the
birth of a child must be preceded by union between the opposite sexes; but we cannot explain how
this union results in the creation of life, or how it is that the child inherits instincts, talents, and
defects, or possesses genius, or is born an idiot. Here we are faced by mysteries which lead us deeper
and deeper into unconscious realms - that is into realms beyond our reason - and when we enter these
realms all we can do is to speak symbolically.
Instead, if we turn from the body to the soul, supposing it to be the Bride of God and God the
Bridegroom, we may consciously realize that union has taken place; but when the spiritual child is
born we cannot explain the divine process of creation, and the more we attempt to explain it the more
obscure become our symbols, every one of which is in fact a lie, that is a misrepresentation of the
unconscious or super-conscious to the conscious.
To the Qabalist, as there are two principles in every human being - the active and the passive -
because of the law of inversion there must also be two principles within the Divinity. To Him the
great work of redemption is not to redeem ourselves, or to be redeemed by the Divine Power, but to
redeem Tetragrammaton, the fallen God of the Yetziratic World. The active principle in man must
unite with the passive principle in YHVH, and the passive principle in man must submit to union with
the active principle in YHVH. From this dual marriage between man and Divinity will emanate the
Child, or Messiah, a complete integration of man in God and of God in man.
As through the divine fall the Divinity became manifest in Adam Qadmon, accordingly must man
emulate him and through his own transfiguration destroy the material form of consciousness, so that
the mirror of illusions may dissolve. Thus will Divinity be redeemed by the destruction of the divine
image and the ineffable Shin will be reabsorbed into the body of Tetragrammaton. Man must suffer
for God - just as in Christian theology, which in so many ways inverts Hebrew theology, Christ must
suffer for man, so that God may become the Perfect One. Thus the crucifixion of mankind is the
necessary consequent of the divine fall. Man is, therefore, the implement of the redemption of God.
This is the secret the Qabalah hints at but never clearly expresses.
knowledge of things which we cannot explain or even understand. For instance, we know that the
birth of a child must be preceded by union between the opposite sexes; but we cannot explain how
this union results in the creation of life, or how it is that the child inherits instincts, talents, and
defects, or possesses genius, or is born an idiot. Here we are faced by mysteries which lead us deeper
and deeper into unconscious realms - that is into realms beyond our reason - and when we enter these
realms all we can do is to speak symbolically.
Instead, if we turn from the body to the soul, supposing it to be the Bride of God and God the
Bridegroom, we may consciously realize that union has taken place; but when the spiritual child is
born we cannot explain the divine process of creation, and the more we attempt to explain it the more
obscure become our symbols, every one of which is in fact a lie, that is a misrepresentation of the
unconscious or super-conscious to the conscious.
To the Qabalist, as there are two principles in every human being - the active and the passive -
because of the law of inversion there must also be two principles within the Divinity. To Him the
great work of redemption is not to redeem ourselves, or to be redeemed by the Divine Power, but to
redeem Tetragrammaton, the fallen God of the Yetziratic World. The active principle in man must
unite with the passive principle in YHVH, and the passive principle in man must submit to union with
the active principle in YHVH. From this dual marriage between man and Divinity will emanate the
Child, or Messiah, a complete integration of man in God and of God in man.
As through the divine fall the Divinity became manifest in Adam Qadmon, accordingly must man
emulate him and through his own transfiguration destroy the material form of consciousness, so that
the mirror of illusions may dissolve. Thus will Divinity be redeemed by the destruction of the divine
image and the ineffable Shin will be reabsorbed into the body of Tetragrammaton. Man must suffer
for God - just as in Christian theology, which in so many ways inverts Hebrew theology, Christ must
suffer for man, so that God may become the Perfect One. Thus the crucifixion of mankind is the
necessary consequent of the divine fall. Man is, therefore, the implement of the redemption of God.
This is the secret the Qabalah hints at but never clearly expresses.
| The Accomplishment of the Messianic Act |
In the second chapter of Genesis Tetragrammaton created Adam Qadmon in his own form. He
took “dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living
soul”. Next Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden, that is in Malkuth, which is magically divided
by four rivers. This means that man, or the humanity of Adam, becomes the Shin surrounded by the
four elements, or the four magical powers of courage, will, knowledge, and silence. In the centre of
the Garden is planted a tree, symbolic of the living force, from the root of which spring three trunks.
As already explained in a former chapter, the central one leads to the life supernal and the remaining
two include the life infernal; all three, springing from one root, Malkuth, find their unity in Kether.
Only by eating of the fruits of the infernal branches and digesting these fruits can Adam compel the
central trunk to grow, and only when its topmost branches are climbed will Adam realize the nonexistence
of good and evil, and discover the World of Spirit and clothe himself in immortality.
The relationship between Tetragrammaton and humanity the flesh cells, so to speak, of Adam
Qadmon - creates the potentialities of Satan (the demon hordes); and as Tetragrammaton is possessed
of a horror (a void) when he contemplates the loss of his identity, in order to maintain it secret he
forbids Adam to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, because its fruits are death, that is
they lead to passivity - the magical recoil which threatens the active existence of Satan.
Next Eve, the female counterpart of Adam, is formed, and though mystically the man and the
woman are created in one form, face to face, allegorically the creation of Eve precedes that of Adam,
for allegorically the positive forces of life (the masculine) emanate from the negative forces (the
feminine). By separating the ∞od from Tetragrammaton - (Y)HVH-and thus creating Eve, a
stupendous active and consequently demoniacal force is released; for Eve is “the mother of all living
things” (including the “Mother of God”) the female, or negative, force of Jah (YH) - the Heh of which
is ever seeking to reunite with the ∞od.
In its lower aspect∞od represents Microcosmic man; in its higher it represents the Tree of Life
and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. As man is a trinity in unity inhibited by a gleam of
the supernal Shin - the Shin which, volatilizing into Light, enabled Tetragrammaton to become
visible-so also is the ∞od threefold in nature. It represents not only the Pillars of Severity, Mercy, and
Mildness, but also formation, reformation, and transformation; activity, passivity, and equilibrium;
and good, evil, and deliverance. Thus it is not one ∞od but three ∞odin, which to unite must climb
the three trunks of the inseparable Trees and, interlacing in Kether, the Crown, reformulate the letter
Shin, a trinity in unity. Thus will it deliver back to Tetragrammaton the power he lost in his fall from
the world of Yetzirah. Such is the accomplishment of the Messianic Act.
took “dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living
soul”. Next Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden, that is in Malkuth, which is magically divided
by four rivers. This means that man, or the humanity of Adam, becomes the Shin surrounded by the
four elements, or the four magical powers of courage, will, knowledge, and silence. In the centre of
the Garden is planted a tree, symbolic of the living force, from the root of which spring three trunks.
As already explained in a former chapter, the central one leads to the life supernal and the remaining
two include the life infernal; all three, springing from one root, Malkuth, find their unity in Kether.
Only by eating of the fruits of the infernal branches and digesting these fruits can Adam compel the
central trunk to grow, and only when its topmost branches are climbed will Adam realize the nonexistence
of good and evil, and discover the World of Spirit and clothe himself in immortality.
The relationship between Tetragrammaton and humanity the flesh cells, so to speak, of Adam
Qadmon - creates the potentialities of Satan (the demon hordes); and as Tetragrammaton is possessed
of a horror (a void) when he contemplates the loss of his identity, in order to maintain it secret he
forbids Adam to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, because its fruits are death, that is
they lead to passivity - the magical recoil which threatens the active existence of Satan.
Next Eve, the female counterpart of Adam, is formed, and though mystically the man and the
woman are created in one form, face to face, allegorically the creation of Eve precedes that of Adam,
for allegorically the positive forces of life (the masculine) emanate from the negative forces (the
feminine). By separating the ∞od from Tetragrammaton - (Y)HVH-and thus creating Eve, a
stupendous active and consequently demoniacal force is released; for Eve is “the mother of all living
things” (including the “Mother of God”) the female, or negative, force of Jah (YH) - the Heh of which
is ever seeking to reunite with the ∞od.
In its lower aspect∞od represents Microcosmic man; in its higher it represents the Tree of Life
and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. As man is a trinity in unity inhibited by a gleam of
the supernal Shin - the Shin which, volatilizing into Light, enabled Tetragrammaton to become
visible-so also is the ∞od threefold in nature. It represents not only the Pillars of Severity, Mercy, and
Mildness, but also formation, reformation, and transformation; activity, passivity, and equilibrium;
and good, evil, and deliverance. Thus it is not one ∞od but three ∞odin, which to unite must climb
the three trunks of the inseparable Trees and, interlacing in Kether, the Crown, reformulate the letter
Shin, a trinity in unity. Thus will it deliver back to Tetragrammaton the power he lost in his fall from
the world of Yetzirah. Such is the accomplishment of the Messianic Act.
| The Integration of the Disintegrated |
Thus far the mystery of the ∞od, the positive force of Jah (YH); next, as to Eve, who being
possessed of the negative force, the Heh, has upset the balance of equilibrium.
In the centre of the name of Eve is the active and virile Vau, the subtle Serpent of the third chapter
of Genesis. It is the positive quality of the Messianic Force and is, consequently, an evil which creates
good. When we look at the position of this letter and remember the significance of those on its right
and left, we at once notice how abnormal its place is. On the left is its natural partner, the first Heh or
Daughter, its wedded wife; on the right is its Mother, now widowed, because she is separated from the
∞od and yet forced into an unnatural union with her Son. She is ever striving to reunite with the ∞od,
and consequently Eve is tempted to eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
“For God doth know that the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened; and ye shall be as
gods, knowing good and evil.”
The passive forces, symbolized by woman, listen to the lamentation of the primal Heh, and then
seeing that it was a “Tree to be desired to make one wise” (that is leading from the fiftieth gate of the
feminine Binah to the masculine 'Hokmah), Eve plucked of its fruit and handed it to Adam - the active
forces. At once the eyes of both “were opened”, and they knew that they were naked, that is that an
Abyss separated the Supernal Triad from the Infernal Heptad. Thus they became conscious of the
difference between YH and VH, and in this consciousness was reflected the unity of these two (Satan)
as symbolized by their nakedness.
As the Egyptian hierophants, when they discovered that the earth gravitated round the sun, hid
away this knowledge because it revealed the law of attraction and repulsion (the law of creation), so
now did man and woman veil the knowledge of the conjunction of the Vau and the Heh (which is but
a reflection of the union of the ∞od and the Heh) by means of aprons, tha:t is by turning this
knowledge into a mystery
No sooner were the mysteries hidden than the eternal opposites, the man and the woman, heard the
voice of Tetragrammaton “walking in the garden”. It is the Primal Light, Shin, formulated by the
mystic union of the ∞od and Heh (Jah) and the Vau and Heh (Veh). As they heard it they hid
themselves from “the presence of the Lord God”. When questioned, the active force (Vau) accuses the
passive force (Heh), and Jah curses the Serpent (the Messianic Force) and assumes his full Satanic
form by putting enmity into the heart of woman and sorrow into the life of man.
Then he clothes them in animal desires which are symbolized by the coats of skins. That this is the
voice of the fallen Sammael of Yetzirah there can be no doubt, because Tetragrammaton says to Eve:
“Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee” ; in other words - the passive shall
be subservient to the active, which means that equilibrium cannot be established. Lastly,
Tetragrammaton acknowledges the active force by saying:
Behold, the man is become as one of us [the Elohim], to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his
hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the
Garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east
of the garden of Eden, cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of
life.
Herein is hidden a profound mystery: the man alone is cast out of Eden, but not so the woman - the
final Heh remains in the Garden of Mystery; the Vau is cast outside. This separation at once
disintegrates Tetragrammaton: the ∞od becomes the Tree of Life; the primal Heh, the Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil; the Kerubim, the material aspects of ∞od, Heh, Vau, Heh; and the
flaming sword, the Shin. Thus Tetragrammaton is disintegrated and there is separation everywhere.
As with Osiris, the Great Work now consists in reuniting the fragments; the Vau, or creative phallus,
being cast out of the Garden into the World. The Vau must unite with the Heh, for when it does so, in
accordance with the magical law of inversion (Necessity), the ∞od will unite with the Heh, and the
Shin - the Flaming Sword (see Diagram 3) - will be plunged into the heart of
Tetragrammaton. Then will the Kerub of Earth, 7 which is the unity of the forces of the remaining
three Kerubim, be sacrificed - that is materiality will vanish; the Trees of Life and of Good and Evil
will dissolve into one; and as this unity takes form, not only will Tetragrammaton be re-established,
but simultaneously will he become ∞od Heh Shin Vau Heh (hvwhy), 8 the Messiah. Then will the
world of Assiah vanish into the ecstasy of Yetzirah; matter will have become pure form - that is a
mathematical conception, a thought.
possessed of the negative force, the Heh, has upset the balance of equilibrium.
In the centre of the name of Eve is the active and virile Vau, the subtle Serpent of the third chapter
of Genesis. It is the positive quality of the Messianic Force and is, consequently, an evil which creates
good. When we look at the position of this letter and remember the significance of those on its right
and left, we at once notice how abnormal its place is. On the left is its natural partner, the first Heh or
Daughter, its wedded wife; on the right is its Mother, now widowed, because she is separated from the
∞od and yet forced into an unnatural union with her Son. She is ever striving to reunite with the ∞od,
and consequently Eve is tempted to eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
“For God doth know that the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened; and ye shall be as
gods, knowing good and evil.”
The passive forces, symbolized by woman, listen to the lamentation of the primal Heh, and then
seeing that it was a “Tree to be desired to make one wise” (that is leading from the fiftieth gate of the
feminine Binah to the masculine 'Hokmah), Eve plucked of its fruit and handed it to Adam - the active
forces. At once the eyes of both “were opened”, and they knew that they were naked, that is that an
Abyss separated the Supernal Triad from the Infernal Heptad. Thus they became conscious of the
difference between YH and VH, and in this consciousness was reflected the unity of these two (Satan)
as symbolized by their nakedness.
As the Egyptian hierophants, when they discovered that the earth gravitated round the sun, hid
away this knowledge because it revealed the law of attraction and repulsion (the law of creation), so
now did man and woman veil the knowledge of the conjunction of the Vau and the Heh (which is but
a reflection of the union of the ∞od and the Heh) by means of aprons, tha:t is by turning this
knowledge into a mystery
No sooner were the mysteries hidden than the eternal opposites, the man and the woman, heard the
voice of Tetragrammaton “walking in the garden”. It is the Primal Light, Shin, formulated by the
mystic union of the ∞od and Heh (Jah) and the Vau and Heh (Veh). As they heard it they hid
themselves from “the presence of the Lord God”. When questioned, the active force (Vau) accuses the
passive force (Heh), and Jah curses the Serpent (the Messianic Force) and assumes his full Satanic
form by putting enmity into the heart of woman and sorrow into the life of man.
Then he clothes them in animal desires which are symbolized by the coats of skins. That this is the
voice of the fallen Sammael of Yetzirah there can be no doubt, because Tetragrammaton says to Eve:
“Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee” ; in other words - the passive shall
be subservient to the active, which means that equilibrium cannot be established. Lastly,
Tetragrammaton acknowledges the active force by saying:
Behold, the man is become as one of us [the Elohim], to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his
hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the
Garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east
of the garden of Eden, cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of
life.
Herein is hidden a profound mystery: the man alone is cast out of Eden, but not so the woman - the
final Heh remains in the Garden of Mystery; the Vau is cast outside. This separation at once
disintegrates Tetragrammaton: the ∞od becomes the Tree of Life; the primal Heh, the Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil; the Kerubim, the material aspects of ∞od, Heh, Vau, Heh; and the
flaming sword, the Shin. Thus Tetragrammaton is disintegrated and there is separation everywhere.
As with Osiris, the Great Work now consists in reuniting the fragments; the Vau, or creative phallus,
being cast out of the Garden into the World. The Vau must unite with the Heh, for when it does so, in
accordance with the magical law of inversion (Necessity), the ∞od will unite with the Heh, and the
Shin - the Flaming Sword (see Diagram 3) - will be plunged into the heart of
Tetragrammaton. Then will the Kerub of Earth, 7 which is the unity of the forces of the remaining
three Kerubim, be sacrificed - that is materiality will vanish; the Trees of Life and of Good and Evil
will dissolve into one; and as this unity takes form, not only will Tetragrammaton be re-established,
but simultaneously will he become ∞od Heh Shin Vau Heh (hvwhy), 8 the Messiah. Then will the
world of Assiah vanish into the ecstasy of Yetzirah; matter will have become pure form - that is a
mathematical conception, a thought.
| The Creation of Hell |
Though the world of Assiah is ruled by the inverse Sammael (Tetragrammaton despiritualized),
and is, consequently, the realm of demoniacal forces, it is not Hell as conceived by the Qabalist, for
Hell is the reflection, or shadow, of this world; that is the abode of active forces turned upside down,
the chaos which has to be stilled in order that Shin, the Shikinah, or Divine Majesty, can be perfectly
reflected.
With the disintegration of Tetragrammaton we sink into the carnal, or mundane, aspect of the
mystery, the immediate consequences of this disruption being the birth of Love and Power, which
before were united in a close embrace. The first is the feminine, or passive, quality in humankind, the
Venus force; and the second the active and masculine quality, the Mars force. Mystically their
separation is evil, because it causes striving to reunite; but humanly these qualities are not wicked in
themselves, though they may become sinful, for out of love can emerge lust and hatred, and out of
power fear and cruelty. The demoniac can consequently become the diabolic.
The disruption of Tetragrammaton, which is necessary for the redemption of Tetragrammaton, is
followed by the story of Cain and Abel, the conflict between power and love. The Venusian and
Martian forces in life are divided against each other, life being the synthesis of these two; and the
mystical quality of evil emanates as common mundane wickedness, which leads to murder - the
destruction of life - not its transformation.
Later on this wickedness is followed by the magical prostitution of evil, or the act of Magical
Incest, through the intermingling of the Sons of God (the demoniac powers engendered by the
disruption of Tetragrammaton) with the daughters of men - the carnal lusts of humankind. Here is
symbolized a process of levelling down (a carnal communism) and not of rising up, and the result is
the establishment of Black Magic, the earth being peopled by “mighty men”, or despots. Why not
White Magic? Because the Sons of God (the Above) came down to the daughters of men (the Below);
that is light is absorbed by darkness.
Thus mankind sank into the Qliphoth, the reflection of the world of Assiah upon the chaos of
human passions, and Hell is created - the materialized mental pit. Thus also it came about that the
world became corrupt and filled with violence, and to redeem it it was necessary to destroy it, except
for Noah and those in the Ark. Noah was, however, far from perfect; consequently we find that after
the deluge he profanes the Mysteries, “And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was
uncovered within his tent” and, his son Canaan divulging this profanation, is cursed. Thus magic, in
spite of the repentance of Tetragrammaton, continued to grow until the repopulated world cried:
“Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name,”
that is an object of worship; for they had a crafty design to rid themselves of the Supreme Power and to
transfer His glory to another.
The inner meaning of the Tower of Babel is that any attempt to possess the secrets of heaven in
order to divulge them to the uninitiated on earth must lead to misunderstanding and anarchy - a
confusion of tongues, that is of false symbols. A universal pentacle cannot be constructed for the
unpurified multitudes, for the multitudes can only comprehend parables.
We have now descended a long way in the hierarchy of evil. From the divine we have touched
bottom in the magical, and yet all we have explained is included in the words of the Emerald Tablet of
Hermes Trismegistus:
“That which is above is like that which is below, and that which is below is like that which is
above, for the operations of the wonders of the one thing.” “To deny hell”, writes Éliphas Lévi, “is
also to deny heaven” then he says:
Seeing that, according to the most exalted interpretation of the Great Hermetic Dogma, hell is the
equilibrating reason of heaven, for harmony results from the analogy of contraries, Quod superius, sicut quod
inferius. Superiority presupposes inferiority; the depth determines the height, and to fill up the valleys is to
efface mountains, so also to take away shadows would be to destroy light, as this is only visible by the
graduated contrast of darkness and day; a universal obscurity would be produced by all-dazzling brilliance. The
very existence of colour in light is due to the presence of shadow; it is the triple alliance of day and night, the
luminous image of dogma, the light made shadow, and the Saviour is the Word made man. All this rests on the
same law, which is the first law of creation, the one absolute law of Nature, being that of distinction and
harmonious balancing of opposing forces in universal equilibrium.
and is, consequently, the realm of demoniacal forces, it is not Hell as conceived by the Qabalist, for
Hell is the reflection, or shadow, of this world; that is the abode of active forces turned upside down,
the chaos which has to be stilled in order that Shin, the Shikinah, or Divine Majesty, can be perfectly
reflected.
With the disintegration of Tetragrammaton we sink into the carnal, or mundane, aspect of the
mystery, the immediate consequences of this disruption being the birth of Love and Power, which
before were united in a close embrace. The first is the feminine, or passive, quality in humankind, the
Venus force; and the second the active and masculine quality, the Mars force. Mystically their
separation is evil, because it causes striving to reunite; but humanly these qualities are not wicked in
themselves, though they may become sinful, for out of love can emerge lust and hatred, and out of
power fear and cruelty. The demoniac can consequently become the diabolic.
The disruption of Tetragrammaton, which is necessary for the redemption of Tetragrammaton, is
followed by the story of Cain and Abel, the conflict between power and love. The Venusian and
Martian forces in life are divided against each other, life being the synthesis of these two; and the
mystical quality of evil emanates as common mundane wickedness, which leads to murder - the
destruction of life - not its transformation.
Later on this wickedness is followed by the magical prostitution of evil, or the act of Magical
Incest, through the intermingling of the Sons of God (the demoniac powers engendered by the
disruption of Tetragrammaton) with the daughters of men - the carnal lusts of humankind. Here is
symbolized a process of levelling down (a carnal communism) and not of rising up, and the result is
the establishment of Black Magic, the earth being peopled by “mighty men”, or despots. Why not
White Magic? Because the Sons of God (the Above) came down to the daughters of men (the Below);
that is light is absorbed by darkness.
Thus mankind sank into the Qliphoth, the reflection of the world of Assiah upon the chaos of
human passions, and Hell is created - the materialized mental pit. Thus also it came about that the
world became corrupt and filled with violence, and to redeem it it was necessary to destroy it, except
for Noah and those in the Ark. Noah was, however, far from perfect; consequently we find that after
the deluge he profanes the Mysteries, “And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was
uncovered within his tent” and, his son Canaan divulging this profanation, is cursed. Thus magic, in
spite of the repentance of Tetragrammaton, continued to grow until the repopulated world cried:
“Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name,”
that is an object of worship; for they had a crafty design to rid themselves of the Supreme Power and to
transfer His glory to another.
The inner meaning of the Tower of Babel is that any attempt to possess the secrets of heaven in
order to divulge them to the uninitiated on earth must lead to misunderstanding and anarchy - a
confusion of tongues, that is of false symbols. A universal pentacle cannot be constructed for the
unpurified multitudes, for the multitudes can only comprehend parables.
We have now descended a long way in the hierarchy of evil. From the divine we have touched
bottom in the magical, and yet all we have explained is included in the words of the Emerald Tablet of
Hermes Trismegistus:
“That which is above is like that which is below, and that which is below is like that which is
above, for the operations of the wonders of the one thing.” “To deny hell”, writes Éliphas Lévi, “is
also to deny heaven” then he says:
Seeing that, according to the most exalted interpretation of the Great Hermetic Dogma, hell is the
equilibrating reason of heaven, for harmony results from the analogy of contraries, Quod superius, sicut quod
inferius. Superiority presupposes inferiority; the depth determines the height, and to fill up the valleys is to
efface mountains, so also to take away shadows would be to destroy light, as this is only visible by the
graduated contrast of darkness and day; a universal obscurity would be produced by all-dazzling brilliance. The
very existence of colour in light is due to the presence of shadow; it is the triple alliance of day and night, the
luminous image of dogma, the light made shadow, and the Saviour is the Word made man. All this rests on the
same law, which is the first law of creation, the one absolute law of Nature, being that of distinction and
harmonious balancing of opposing forces in universal equilibrium.
| The Source of Messianic Power |
As the creation of the world was out of chaos, so must its destruction, which carries with it its
spiritual resurrection, be through chaos; such is the simple logic of the Qabalah.
As God is the consciousness of the Macrocosm, so is man the consciousness of the Microcosm;
such is the simple mystery of the Qabalah. In the human world man is a god knowing good and evil,
yet he is also the son of the God of the natural world - the creator of good and evil. As consciousness
has been precipitated from the source of all things, so is it man's lot to expand his atom of
consciousness until it fills eternity and merges once again into the source from whence it emanated.
Little by little in this upward evolution are all things intellectualized and in consequence destroyed.
Thus the unknown becomes the known and ceases to exist because its knowability is death to its
mystery; that is to say it is bereft of opposition to the consciousness of man. Thus the search for
knowledge is an unending campaign against duality in which conquest deprives the conquered of its
activity, its opposition, which in man is shadowed forth as ignorance. A void is created, and over it
the Spirit (Shekinah) in man moves and respiritualizes the gross incarnation of Tetragrammaton and
so formulates the Messiah.
The laboratory of the Devil (Satan of the Qliphoth) is the heart of man; herein are all things human
conceived and ordered.
Mystically this heart is the Ark which rode out the terrors of the flood, just as the Shin rode out the
terrors of the darkness which “was upon the face of the deep”. The timber it is built of is cut from the
branches of the Tree of Life. In it is carried the cubic Stone of the Wise, the Corner Stone of the
Qabalistic Temple (the divine form of Adam Qadmon), the apex of which is the letter ∞od, and at the
corners of whose triangular base stand the letters Heh, Vau, Heh, and in whose centre, unseen from
outside, is the letter Shin. This letter, as we have already explained, symbolizes among other things
the crucifixion of Christ - Christ between the aggressive and passive thieves. As Christ expires, His
soul is liberated and the veil of the Temple (the pyramid) is rent in the midst. The three flames, or
∞odin, of the letter Shin represent the Od, Aur, and Ob, the active, equilibrating, and passive forces of
life – a trinity in unity. The Messianic Act, or Great Work, consists in freeing the hidden Shin from
the elemental pyramid in which it is imprisoned. Then the four elements vanish and the splendour of
the Shekinah enwraps, like a caul of light, the Divine Child - the Messiah.
From this esoteric doctrine it will be seen that the Messiah does not come from outside, he does
not descend upon the pyramid; in place he comes from inside and dissolves the pyramid. The
Christian idea of the Son of God descending from heaven to save the world is in fact the Qabalistic
idea upside down; for all men, or, according to the Hebrews, all the Chosen People, are sons of God,
particles of divinity, atoms of spirit, and when all these atoms unite in one spiritual ecstasy the
Messiah is born; for he is the integration of the totality of spirit in mankind. Not a spark descending
into darkness, but darkness dissolving into illimitable light. From the active to the formal, from the
formal to the creative, from the creative to the archetypal, and thence back into the No-Thingness, the
source and the end of all things: such is the complete Messianic hypostasis.
spiritual resurrection, be through chaos; such is the simple logic of the Qabalah.
As God is the consciousness of the Macrocosm, so is man the consciousness of the Microcosm;
such is the simple mystery of the Qabalah. In the human world man is a god knowing good and evil,
yet he is also the son of the God of the natural world - the creator of good and evil. As consciousness
has been precipitated from the source of all things, so is it man's lot to expand his atom of
consciousness until it fills eternity and merges once again into the source from whence it emanated.
Little by little in this upward evolution are all things intellectualized and in consequence destroyed.
Thus the unknown becomes the known and ceases to exist because its knowability is death to its
mystery; that is to say it is bereft of opposition to the consciousness of man. Thus the search for
knowledge is an unending campaign against duality in which conquest deprives the conquered of its
activity, its opposition, which in man is shadowed forth as ignorance. A void is created, and over it
the Spirit (Shekinah) in man moves and respiritualizes the gross incarnation of Tetragrammaton and
so formulates the Messiah.
The laboratory of the Devil (Satan of the Qliphoth) is the heart of man; herein are all things human
conceived and ordered.
Mystically this heart is the Ark which rode out the terrors of the flood, just as the Shin rode out the
terrors of the darkness which “was upon the face of the deep”. The timber it is built of is cut from the
branches of the Tree of Life. In it is carried the cubic Stone of the Wise, the Corner Stone of the
Qabalistic Temple (the divine form of Adam Qadmon), the apex of which is the letter ∞od, and at the
corners of whose triangular base stand the letters Heh, Vau, Heh, and in whose centre, unseen from
outside, is the letter Shin. This letter, as we have already explained, symbolizes among other things
the crucifixion of Christ - Christ between the aggressive and passive thieves. As Christ expires, His
soul is liberated and the veil of the Temple (the pyramid) is rent in the midst. The three flames, or
∞odin, of the letter Shin represent the Od, Aur, and Ob, the active, equilibrating, and passive forces of
life – a trinity in unity. The Messianic Act, or Great Work, consists in freeing the hidden Shin from
the elemental pyramid in which it is imprisoned. Then the four elements vanish and the splendour of
the Shekinah enwraps, like a caul of light, the Divine Child - the Messiah.
From this esoteric doctrine it will be seen that the Messiah does not come from outside, he does
not descend upon the pyramid; in place he comes from inside and dissolves the pyramid. The
Christian idea of the Son of God descending from heaven to save the world is in fact the Qabalistic
idea upside down; for all men, or, according to the Hebrews, all the Chosen People, are sons of God,
particles of divinity, atoms of spirit, and when all these atoms unite in one spiritual ecstasy the
Messiah is born; for he is the integration of the totality of spirit in mankind. Not a spark descending
into darkness, but darkness dissolving into illimitable light. From the active to the formal, from the
formal to the creative, from the creative to the archetypal, and thence back into the No-Thingness, the
source and the end of all things: such is the complete Messianic hypostasis.
As we have shown in the last chapter, the Messianic Act consists of a “transubstantiation” of the
material into the spiritual; that is of the Assiatic World into the Yetziratic; in other words, a reversal
of the whole process of creation. In the everyday meaning of the words, its object is not to establish
law and order, or the happiness of mankind, or to substitute good for evil, but diametrically the
opposite: namely to produce anarchy and discontent of so potent a nature that the complementary
forces in this world will annihilate one another through the intensity of their friction. To illustrate this
by a scientific example: suppose that the universe were composed of the gases oxygen and hydrogen
which had been created by electrolysing water; then the Messianic Act would consist in destroying
this universe so that it might be replaced by the water out of which it had been formed.
To carry this illustration further: suppose that the four worlds of the Qabalistic cosmology are
represented by ice, water, steam, and gas, and that their final state is called electricity, or complete
dematerialization (No-Thingness); then the ultimate object of the Messianic Act is to re-establish this
Nirvana. Symbolically, this potent mystery is depicted in the eucharist, or high mass, in which the
bread and the wine are transmuted into the body and blood of Christ; that is matter into God.
As we have already stated, it was on account of the potency of this mystery that it was so heavily
shrouded. Here existed an idea which could either re-create Divinity or plunge mankind into still
deeper depths of Devilry. It could exalt man to supreme genius or cast him down into complete
madness. Its potency was so stupendous that it may be compared to atomic energy in the physical
world; for – “as above so beneath” - it followed that its destructive force was as great as its creative
force. Which would be used depended entirely upon the will of the user. Therefore it is the Will which
is the redeemer.
material into the spiritual; that is of the Assiatic World into the Yetziratic; in other words, a reversal
of the whole process of creation. In the everyday meaning of the words, its object is not to establish
law and order, or the happiness of mankind, or to substitute good for evil, but diametrically the
opposite: namely to produce anarchy and discontent of so potent a nature that the complementary
forces in this world will annihilate one another through the intensity of their friction. To illustrate this
by a scientific example: suppose that the universe were composed of the gases oxygen and hydrogen
which had been created by electrolysing water; then the Messianic Act would consist in destroying
this universe so that it might be replaced by the water out of which it had been formed.
To carry this illustration further: suppose that the four worlds of the Qabalistic cosmology are
represented by ice, water, steam, and gas, and that their final state is called electricity, or complete
dematerialization (No-Thingness); then the ultimate object of the Messianic Act is to re-establish this
Nirvana. Symbolically, this potent mystery is depicted in the eucharist, or high mass, in which the
bread and the wine are transmuted into the body and blood of Christ; that is matter into God.
As we have already stated, it was on account of the potency of this mystery that it was so heavily
shrouded. Here existed an idea which could either re-create Divinity or plunge mankind into still
deeper depths of Devilry. It could exalt man to supreme genius or cast him down into complete
madness. Its potency was so stupendous that it may be compared to atomic energy in the physical
world; for – “as above so beneath” - it followed that its destructive force was as great as its creative
force. Which would be used depended entirely upon the will of the user. Therefore it is the Will which
is the redeemer.
| Man the Instrument of Redemption |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
The Secret Wisdom Of The Qabalah: Chapter 5