In _The Theosophist_ for March, 1886,(415) in an answer to the “Solar
Sphinx,” a member of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society wrote as
follows:
We hold and believe that the revival of Occult Knowledge now in
progress will some day demonstrate that the Western system
represents ranges of perceptions which the Eastern—at least as
expounded in the pages of _The Theosophist_—has yet to
attain.(416)
The writer is not the only person labouring under this erroneous
impression. Greater Kabalists than he had said the same in the United
States. This only proves that the knowledge possessed by Western
Occultists of the true Philosophy, and the “ranges of perceptions” and
thought of the Eastern doctrines, is very superficial. This assertion will
be easily demonstrated by giving a few instances, instituting comparisons
between the two interpretations of one and the same doctrine—the Hermetic
Universal Doctrine. It is the more needed since, were we to neglect
bringing forward such comparisons, our work would be left incomplete.
We may take the late Éliphas Lévi, rightly referred to by another Western
Mystic, Mr. Kenneth Mackenzie, as “one of the greatest representatives of
modern Occult Philosophy,”(417) as presumably the best and most learned
expounder of the Chaldæan _Kabalah_, and compare his teaching with that of
Eastern Occultists. In his unpublished manuscripts and letters, lent to us
by a Theosophist, who was for fifteen years his pupil, we had hoped to
find that which he was unwilling to publish. What we do find, however,
disappoints us greatly. We will take these teachings, then, as containing
the essence of Western or Kabalistic Occultism, analyzing and comparing
them with the Eastern interpretation as we go on.
Éliphas Lévi teaches correctly, though in language rather too
rhapsodically rhetorical to be sufficiently clear to the beginner, that
Eternal life is Motion equilibrated by the alternate
manifestations of force.
But why does he not add that this perpetual motion is independent of the
manifested Forces at work? He says:
Chaos is the Tohu‐vah‐bohu of perpetual motion and the sum total
of primordial matter;
and he fails to add that Matter is “primordial” only at the beginning of
every new reconstruction of the Universe, matter _in abscondito_, as it is
called by the Alchemists, is eternal, indestructible, without beginning or
end. It is regarded by Eastern Occultists as the eternal Root of all, the
Mûlaprakriti of the Vedântin, and the Svabhâvat of the Buddhist, the
Divine Essence, in short, or Substance; the radiations from This are
periodically aggregated into graduated forms, from pure Spirit to gross
Matter; the Root, or Space, is in its abstract presence the Deity Itself,
the Ineffable and Unknown One Cause.
Ain‐Suph with him also is the Boundless, the infinite and One Unity,
secondless and causeless as Parabrahman. Ain‐Suph is the indivisible
point, and therefore, as “being everywhere and nowhere,” is the absolute
All. It is also “Darkness” because it is absolute Light, and the Root of
the seven fundamental Cosmic Principles. Yet Éliphas Lévi, by simply
stating that “Darkness was upon the face of the Earth,” fails to show
(_a_) that “Darkness” in this sense is Deity Itself, and he is therefore
withholding the only philosophical solution of this problem for the human
mind; and (_b_) he allows the unwary student to believe that by “Earth”
our own little globe—an atom in the Universe—is meant. In short, this
teaching does not embrace the Occult Cosmogony, but deals simply with
Occult Geology and the formation of our cosmic speck. This is further
shown by his making a _résumé_ of the Sephirothal Tree in this wise:
God is harmony, the astronomy of Powers and Unity outside of the
World.
This seems to suggest (_a_) that he teaches the existence of an extra‐
cosmic God, thus limiting and conditioning both the Kosmos and the divine
Infinity and Omnipresence, which cannot be extraneous to or outside of one
single atom; and (_b_) that by skipping the whole of the pre‐cosmic
period—the manifested Kosmos here being meant—the very root of Occult
teaching, he explains only the Kabalistic meaning of the dead‐letter of
the _Bible_ and _Genesis_, leaving its spirit and essence untouched.
Surely the “ranges of perception” of the Western mind will not be greatly
enlarged by such a limited teaching.
Having said a few words on Tohu‐vah‐bohu—the meaning of which Wordsworth
rendered graphically as “higgledy‐piggledy”—and having explained that this
term denoted Cosmos, he teaches that:
Above the dark abyss [Chaos] were the Waters; ... the earth [_la
terre!_] was Tohu‐vah‐bohu, _i.e._, in confusion, and darkness
covered the face of the Deep, and vehement Breath moved on the
Waters when the Spirit exclaimed [?], “Let there be light,” and
there was light. Thus the earth [our globe, of course] was in a
state of cataclysm; _thick_ vapours veiled the immensity of the
sky, the earth was covered with waters and a violent wind was
agitating this dark ocean, when at a given moment the equilibrium
revealed itself and light reäppeared; the letters that compose the
Hebrew word “Bereshith” (the first word of _Genesis_) are “Beth,”
the binary, the verb manifested by the act, a _feminine_ letter;
then “Resch,” the Verbum and Life, number 20, the disc multiplied
by 2; and “Aleph,” the spiritual principle, the Unit, a masculine
letter.
Place these letters in a triangle and you have the absolute Unity,
that without being included into numbers creates the number, the
first manifestation, which is 2, and these two united by harmony
resulting from the analogy of contraries [opposites], make 1,
only. This is why God is called Elohim (plural).
All this is very ingenious, but is very puzzling, besides being incorrect.
For owing to the first sentence, “Above the dark abyss were the Waters,”
the French Kabalist leads the student away from the right track. This an
Eastern Chela will see at a glance, and even one of the profane may see
it. For if the Tohu‐vah‐bohu is “under” and the Waters are “above,” then
these two are quite distinct from each other, and this is not the case.
This statement is a very important one, inasmuch as it entirely changes
the spirit and nature of Cosmogony, and brings it down to a level with
exoteric _Genesis_—perhaps it was so stated with an eye to this result.
The Tohu‐vah‐bohu is the “Great Deep” and is identical with “the Waters of
Chaos,” or the primordial Darkness. By stating the fact otherwise it makes
both “the Great Deep” and the “Waters”—which cannot be separated except in
the phenomenal world—limited as to space and conditioned as to their
nature. Thus Éliphas in his desire to conceal the last word of Esoteric
Philosophy, fails—whether intentionally or otherwise does not matter—to
point out the fundamental principle of the one true Occult Philosophy,
namely, the unity and absolute homogeneity of the One Eternal Divine
Element, and he makes of the Deity a male God. Then he says:
Above the Waters was the powerful Breath of the Elohim [the
creative Dhyân Chohans]. Above the Breath appeared the Light, and
above the Light the Word ... that created it.
Now the fact is quite the reverse of this: it is the Primeval Light that
creates the Word or Logos, Who in His turn creates physical light. For the
Secret Doctrine teaches us that the reconstruction of the Universe takes
place in this wise: At the periods of new generation, perpetual Motion
becomes Breath; from the Breath comes forth primordial Light, through
whose radiance manifests the Eternal Thought concealed in darkness, and
this becomes the Word (Mantra).(418) It is _That_ (the Mantra or Word)
from which all This (the Universe) sprang into being.
Further on Éliphas Lévi says:
This [the concealed Deity] radiated a ray into the Eternal Essence
[Waters of Space] and, fructifying thereby the primordial germ,
the Essence expanded,(419) giving birth to the Heavenly Man from
whose mind were born all forms.
The _Kabalah_ states very nearly the same. To learn what it really teaches
one has to reverse the order in which Éliphas Lévi gives it, replacing the
word “above” by that of “in,” as there cannot surely be any “above” or
“under” in the Absolute. This is what he says:
Above the waters the powerful breath of the Elohim; above the
Breath the Light; above Light the Word, or the Speech that created
it. We see here the spheres of evolution: the souls [?] driven
from the dark centre (Darkness) toward the luminous circumference.
At the bottom of the lowest circle is the Tohu‐vah‐bohu, or the
chaos which precedes all manifestation [_Naissances_—generation];
then the region of Water; then Breath; then Light; and, lastly,
the Word.
The construction of the above sentences shows that the learned Abbé had a
decided tendency to anthropomorphize creation, even though the latter has
to be shaped out of preëxisting material, as the _Zohar_ shows plainly
enough.
This is how the “great” Western Kabalist gets out of the difficulty: he
keeps silent on the first stage of evolution and imagines a second Chaos.
Thus he says:
The Tohu‐vah‐bohu is the Latin Limbus, or twilight of the morning
and evening of life.(420) It is in perpetual motion,(421) it
decomposes continually,(422) and the work of putrefaction
accelerates, because the world is advancing towards
regeneration.(423) The Tohu‐vah‐bohu of the Hebrews is not exactly
the confusion of things called Chaos by the Greeks, and which is
found described in the commencement of the Metamorphosis of Ovid;
it is something greater and more profound; it is the foundation of
religion, it is the philosophical affirmation of the immateriality
of God.
Rather an affirmation of the materiality of a personal God. If a man has
to seek his Deity in the Hades of the ancients—for the Tohu‐vah‐bohu, or
the Limbus of the Greeks, is the Hall of Hades—then one can wonder no
longer at the accusations brought forward by the Church against the
“witches” and sorcerers versed in Western Kabalism, that they adored the
goat Mendes, or the devil personified by certain spooks and Elementals.
But in face of the task Éliphas Lévi had set before himself—that of
reconciling Jewish Magic with Roman ecclesiasticism—he could say nothing
else.
Then he explains the first sentence in _Genesis_:
Let us put on one side the vulgar translation of the sacred texts
and see what is hidden in the first chapter of _Genesis_.
He then gives the Hebrew text quite correctly, but transliterates it:
Bereschith Bara Eloim uth aschamam ouatti aares ouares ayete Tohu‐
vah‐bohu.... Ouimas Eloim rai avur ouiai aour.
And he then explains:
The first word, “Bereschith,” signifies “genesis,” a word
equivalent to “nature.”
“The act of generation or production,” we maintain; not “nature.” He then
continues:
The phrase, then, is incorrectly translated in the _Bible_. It is
not “in the beginning,” for it should be at the stage of the
_generating force_,(424) which would thus exclude every idea of
the _ex‐nihilo_ ... as _nothing_ cannot produce something. The
word “Eloim” or “Elohim” signifies the generating Powers, and such
is the Occult sense of the first verse.... “Bereschith” (“nature”
or “genesis”), “Bara” (“created”) “Eloim” (“the forces”) “Athat‐
ashamaim” (“heavens”) “ouath” and “oaris” (“the earth”); that is
to say, “The generative potencies created indefinitely
(eternally(425)) those forces that are the equilibrated opposites
that we call heaven and earth, meaning the space and the bodies,
the volatile and the fixed, the movement and the weight.”
Now this, if it be correct, is too vague to be understood by any one
ignorant of the Kabalistic teaching. Not only are his explanations
unsatisfactory and misleading—in his published works they are still
worse—but his Hebrew transliteration is entirely wrong: it precludes the
student, who would compare it for himself with the equivalent symbols and
numerals of the words and letters of the Hebrew alphabet, from finding
anything of that he might have found were the words correctly spelt in the
French transliteration.
Compared even with exoteric Hindu Cosmogony, the philosophy which Éliphas
Lévi gives out as Kabalistic is simply mystical Roman Catholicism adapted
to the Christian _Kabalah_. His _Histoire de la Magie_ shows it plainly,
and reveals also his object, which he does not even care to conceal. For,
while stating with his Church, that
The Christian religion has imposed silence on the lying oracles of
the Gentiles and put an end to the prestige of the false
gods,(426)
he promises to prove in his work that the real Sanctum Regnum, the great
Magic Art, is in that Star of Bethlehem which led the three Magi to adore
the Saviour of the World. He says:
We will prove that the study of the sacred Pentagram had to lead
all the Magi to know the new name which should be raised above all
names, and before which every being capable of worship has to bend
his knee.(427)
This shows that Lévi’s _Kabalah_ is mystic Christianity, and not
Occultism; for Occultism is universal and knows no difference between the
“Saviours” (or great Avatâras) of the several old nations. Éliphas Lévi
was not an exception in preaching Christianity under a disguise of
Kabalism. He was undeniably “the greatest representative of modern Occult
Philosophy,” as it is studied in Roman Catholic countries generally, where
it is fitted to the preconceptions of Christian students. But he never
taught the real universal _Kabalah_, and least of all did he teach Eastern
Occultism. Let the student compare the Eastern and Western teaching, and
see whether the philosophy of the _Upanishads_ “has yet to attain the
ranges of perception” of this Western system. Everyone has the right to
defend the system he prefers, but in doing this, there is no need to throw
slurs upon the system of one’s brother.
In view of the great resemblance between many of the fundamental “truths”
of Christianity and the “myths” of Brâhmanism, there have been serious
attempts made lately to prove that the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_ and most of the
_Brâhmanas_ and the _Purânas_ are of a far later date than the Mosaic
Books and even than the _Gospels_. But were it possible that an enforced
success should be obtained in this direction, such argument cannot achieve
its object, since the _Rig Veda_ remains. Brought down to the most modern
limits of the age assigned to it, its date cannot be made to overlap that
of the _Pentateuch_, which is admittedly later.
The Orientalists know well that they cannot make away with the landmarks,
followed by all subsequent religions, set up in that “Bible of Humanity”
called the _Rig Veda_. It is there that at the very dawn of intellectual
humanity were laid the foundation‐stones of all the faiths and creeds, of
every fane and church built from first to last; and they are still there.
Universal “myths,” personifications of Powers divine and cosmic, primary
and secondary, and historical personages of all the now‐existing as well
as of extinct religions are to be found in the seven chief Deities and
their 330,000,000 correlations of the _Rig Veda_, and those Seven, with
the odd millions, are the Rays of the one boundless Unity.
But to THIS can never be offered profane worship. It can only be the
“object of the most abstract meditation, which Hindus practise in order to
obtain absorption in it.” At the beginning of every “dawn” of “Creation,”
eternal Light—which is darkness—assumes the aspect of so‐called Chaos:
chaos to the human intellect; the eternal Root to the superhuman or
spiritual sense.
“Osiris is a black God.” These were the words pronounced at “low breath”
at Initiation in Egypt, because Osiris Noumenon is darkness to the mortal.
In this Chaos are formed the “Waters,” Mother Isis, Aditi, etc. They are
the “Waters of Life,” in which primordial germs are created—or rather
reäwakened—by the primordial Light. It is Purushottama, or the Divine
Spirit, which in its capacity of Nârâyana, the Mover on the Waters of
Space, fructifies and infuses the Breath of life into that germ which
becomes the “Golden Mundane Egg,” in which the male Brahmâ is
created;(428) and from this the first Prajâpati, the Lord of Beings,
emerges, and becomes the progenitor of mankind. And though it is not he,
but the Absolute, that is said to contain the Universe in Itself, yet it
is the duty of the male Brahmâ to manifest it in a visible form. Hence he
has to be connected with the procreation of species, and assumes, like
Jehovah and other male Gods in subsequent anthropomorphism, a phallic
symbol. At best every such male God, the “Father” of all, becomes the
“Archetypal Man.” Between him and the Infinite Deity stretches an abyss.
In the theistic religions of personal Gods the latter are degraded from
abstract Forces into physical potencies. The Water of Life—the “Deep” of
Mother Nature—is viewed in its terrestrial aspect in anthropomorphic
religions. Behold, how holy it has become by theological magic! It is held
sacred and is deified now as of old in almost every religion. But if
Christians use it as a means of spiritual purification in baptism and
prayer; if Hindus pay reverence to their sacred streams, tanks, and
rivers; if Pârsî, Mahommedan and Christian alike believe in its efficacy,
surely that element must have some great and Occult significance. In
Occultism it stands for the Fifth Principle of Kosmos, in the lower
septenary: for the whole visible Universe was built by Water, say the
Kabalists who know the difference between the two waters—the “Waters of
Life” and those of Salvation—so confused together in dogmatic religions.
The “King‐Preacher” says of himself:
I, the Preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem, and I gave my
heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all _things_
that are done under heaven.(429)
Speaking of the great work and glory of the Elohim(430)—unified into the
“Lord God” in the English _Bible_, whose garment, he tells us, is light
and heaven the curtain—he refers to the builder
Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters,(431)
that is, the divine Host of the Sephiroth, who have constructed the
Universe out of the Deep, the Waters of Chaos. Moses and Thales were right
in saying that only earth and water can bring forth a living Soul, water
being on this plane the principle of all things. Moses was an Initiate,
Thales a Philosopher—_i.e._, a Scientist, for the words were synonymous in
his day.
The secret meaning of this is that water and earth stand in the Mosaic
Books for the prima materia and the creative (feminine) Principle on our
plane. In Egypt Osiris was Fire, and Isis was the Earth or its synonym
Water; the two opposing elements—just because of their opposite
properties—being necessary to each other for a common object: that of
procreation. The earth needs solar heat and rain to make her throw out her
germs. But these procreative properties of Fire and Water, or Spirit and
Matter, are symbols but of physical generation. While the Jewish Kabalists
symbolized these elements only in their application to manifested things,
and reverenced them as the emblems for the production of terrestrial life,
the Eastern Philosophy noticed them only as an illusive emanation from
their spiritual prototypes, and no unclean or unholy thought marred its
Esoteric religious symbology.
Chaos, as shown elsewhere, is Theos, which becomes Kosmos: it is Space,
the container of everything in the Universe. As Occult Teachings assert,
it is called by the Chaldæans, Egyptians, and every other nation Tohu‐vah‐
bohu, or Chaos, Confusion, because Space is the great storehouse of
Creation, whence proceed not forms alone, but also ideas, which could
receive their expression only through the Logos, the Word, Verbum, or
Sound.
_The numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 are the successive emanations from Mother [Space]
as she forms running downward her garment, spreading it upon the seven
steps of Creation._(_432_)_ The roller returns upon itself, as one end
joins the other __ in infinitude, and the numbers 4, 3, and 2 are
displayed, as it is the only side of the veil that we can perceive, the
first number being lost in its inaccessible solitude._
... _Father, which is Boundless Time, generates Mother, which is infinite
Space, in Eternity; and Mother generates Father in Manvantaras, which are
divisions of durations, that Day when that world becomes one ocean. Then
the Mother becomes Nârâ [Waters—the Great Deep] for Nara [the Supreme
Spirit] to rest—or move—upon, when, it is said, that 1, 2, 3, 4 descend
and abide in the world of the unseen, while the 4, 3, 2, become the limits
in the visible world to deal with the manifestations of Father
[Time]._(433)
This relates to the Mahâyugas which in figures become 432, and with the
addition of noughts, 4,320,000.
Now it is surpassingly strange, if it be a mere coincidence, that the
numerical value of Tohu‐vah‐bohu, or “Chaos,” in the _Bible_—which Chaos,
of course, is the “Mother” Deep, or the Waters of Space—should yield the
same figures. For this is what is found in a Kabalist manuscript:
It is said of the Heavens and the Earth in the second verse of
_Genesis_ that they were “Chaos and Confusion”—that is, they were
“Tohu‐vah‐bohu;” “and _darkness_ was upon the face of the deep,”
_i.e._, “the perfect material out of which construction was to be
made lacked organization.” The order of the digits of these words
as they stand—_i.e._,(434) the letters rendered by their numerical
value—is 6,526,654 and 2,386. By art speech these are key‐working
numbers loosely shuffled together, the germs and keys of
construction, but to be recognized, one by one, as used and
required. They follow symmetrically in the work as immediately
following the first sentence of grand enunciation: “In Rash
developed itself Gods, the heavens and the earth.”
Multiply the numbers of the letters of “Tohu‐vah‐bohu” together
continuously from right to left, placing the consecutive single
products as we go, and we will have the following series of
values, _viz._, (_a_) 30, 60, 360, 2,160, 10,800, 43,200, or as by
the characterizing digits; 3, 6, 36, 216, 108, and 432; (_b_) 20,
120, 720, 1,440, 7,200, or 2, 12, 72, 144, 72, 432, the series
closing in 432, one of the most famous numbers of antiquity, and
which, though obscured, crops out in the chronology up to the
Flood.(435)...
This shows that the Hebrew usage of play upon the numbers must have come
to the Jews from India. As we have seen, the final series yields, besides
many another combination, the figures 108 and 1008—the number of the names
of Vishnu, whence the 108 grains of the Yogî’s rosary—and close with 432,
the truly “famous” number in Indian and Chaldæan antiquity, appearing in
the cycle of 4,320,000 years in the former, and in the 432,000 years, the
duration of the Chaldæan divine dynasties.