Qabbalistic Cosmogony

[hmblservant]

Fundamentals of Qabbalistic Cosmogony

The Qabbalists conceive of the Supreme Deity as an Incomprehensible Principle to be discovered only through the process of eliminating, in order, all its cognizable attributes. That which remains--when every knowable thing has been removedis AIN SOPH, the eternal state of Being. Although indefinable, the Absolute permeates all space. Abstract AIN SOPH is the unconditioned state of all things. Substances, essences, and intelligences are manifested out of the inscrutability of AIN SOPH, but the Absolute itself is without substance, essence, or intelligence. AIN SOPH may be likened to a great field of rich earth out of which rises a myriad of plants, each different in color, formation, and fragrance, yet each with its roots in the same dark loam--which, however, is unlike any of the forms nurtured by it. The "plants" are universes, gods, and man, all nourished by AIN SOPH and all with their source in one definitionless essence; all with their spirits, souls, and bodies fashioned from this essence, and doomed, like the plant, to return to the black ground--AIN SOPH, the only Immortal--whence they came.

AIN SOPH was referred to by the Qabbalists as The Most Ancient of all the Ancients. It was always considered as sexless. Its symbol was a closed eye. While it may be truly said of AIN SOPH that to define It is to defile It, the Rabbis postulated certain theories regarding the manner in which AIN SOPH projected creations out of Itself, and they also assigned to this Absolute Not-Being certain symbols as being descriptive, in part at least, of Its powers. The nature of AIN SOPH they symbolize by a circle, itself emblematic of eternity. This hypothetical circle encloses a dimentionsless area of incomprehensible life, and the circular boundary of this life is abstract and measureless infinity.

According to this concept, God is not only a Center but also Area. Centralization is the first step towards limitation. Therefore, centers which form in the substances of AIN SOPH are finite because they are predestined to dissolution back into the Cause of themselves, while AIN SOPH Itself is infinite because It is the ultimate condition of all things. The circular shape given to AIN SOPH signifies that space is hypothetically enclosed within a great crystal-like globe, outside of which there is nothing, not even a vacuum. Within this globe--symbolic of AIN SOPH--creation and dissolution take place. Every element and principle that will ever be used in the eternities of Kosmic birth, growth, and decay is within the transparent substances of this intangible sphere. It is the Kosmic Egg which is not broken till the great day "Be With Us," which is the end of the Cycle of Necessity, when all things return to their ultimate cause.

In the process of creation the diffused life of AIN SOPH retires from the circumference to the center of the circle and establishes a point, which is the first manifesting One--the primitive limitation of the all-pervading O. When the Divine Essence thus retires from the circular boundary to the center, It leaves behind the Abyss, or, as the Qabbalists term it, the Great Privation. Thus, in AIN SOPH is established a twofold condition where previously had existed but one. The first condition is the central point--the primitive objectified radiance of the enternal, subjectified life. About this radiance is darkness caused by the deprivation of the life which is drawn to the center to create the first point, or universal germ. The universal AIN SOPH, therefore, no longer shines through space, but rather upon space from an established first point. Isaac Myer describes this process as follows: "The Ain Soph at first was filling All and then made an absolute concentration into Itself which produced the Abyss, Deep, or Space, the Aveer Qadmon or Primitive Air, the Azoth; but it is not considered in the Qabbalah as a perfect void or vacuum, a perfectly empty Space, but is thought of as the Waters of Crystalline Chaotic Sea, in which was a certain degree of Light inferior to that by which all the created [worlds and hierarchies] were made."

In the secret teachings of the Qabbalah it is taught that man's body is enveloped in an ovoid of bubble-like iridescence, which is called the Auric Egg. This is the causal sphere of man. It bears the same relationship to man's physical body that the globe of AIN SOPH bears to Its created universes. In fact, this Auric Egg is the AIN SOPH sphere of the entity called man. In reality, therefore, the supreme consciousness of man is in this aura, which extends in all directions and completely encircles his lower bodies. As the consciousness of the Kosmic Egg is withdrawn into a central point, which is then called God--the Supreme One--so the consciousness in the Auric Egg of man is concentrated, thereby causing the establishment of a point of consciousness called the Ego. As the universes in Nature are formed from powers latent in the Kosmic Egg, so everything used by man in all his incarnations throughout the kingdoms of Nature is drawn from the latent powers within his Auric Egg. Man never passes from this egg; it remains even after death. His births, deaths, and rebirths all take place within it, and it cannot be broken until the lesser day "Be With Us," when mankind--like the universe--is liberated from the Wheel of Necessity.

From Manley P. Hall, Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic & Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy.
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[DavidC]

Manly P. Hall (quoted above) writes some things equally/more interesting as/than Aleister Crowley, but the former once seemed to have written something like 'The occultist must learn to develop their skill in utilizing the seething energies of Lucifer.'  I know 'Lucifer' is really a Roman god like the Greek Prometheus, but saying 'seething' seems to indicate modern usage of 'Lucifer.'

Months ago I may have listed in a post in the Gnosis forum section the 7 planes and consciousnesses/intelligences/spirits.  I removed it because I think I made mistakes.  The original Theosophical description by HPB seems to make the most sense because it is like the descriptions of planes and consciousness/intelligence/spirit in about any spiritual philosophy that mentions them.  The quabala has 4 worlds that relate to the 7 'planes,' but I do not remember how.  Perhaps someone can write a post about those.  Now I will list the heptads:

3 spiritual 'planes' beyond human consciousness/intelligence/spirit
spiritual/souful 'plane' of human spirit & soul
souflul/mental/emotional 'plane' of human mind and one ghostly (humanoid emotional) body/soul
emotional/ethereal 'plane' of human life-ether and another ghostly (humanoid 'astral,' typically called emotional, but vital-ethereal) body
material 'plane' (not necessarily with ethereal) of the body

It is actually a 'neo-theosophical' idea to say that the material plane is also ethereal, and that human spirit is in the highest spiritual planes.  There is no provable or greatly agreed on statement of the higher spiritual planes.  A few modern scientists think the material plane may include ether, and a few modern esoteric philosophers think the 'planes' may have dimensions (see why 'planes' does not sound like an accurate term, though if one knows of mathematical 'hyperplanes' the term is still vaguely useful.)

The consciousnesses/intelligences/spirits in esoteric Buddhism include the 7 terms on the left of my list above, i.e. the 'soulful/mental/emotional' world has mind (specifically 2 types,) and 'emotional body/soul.'  The latter might seem like both the mental aura (greatest extent including mental external area) and the (inner) causal body (mental body like the soul like a huge lotus,) and of course on that plane is also the (inner to causal) humanoid mental body.  However one Sanatana Dharma (Hindu) classification combines several consciousnesses/intelligences/spirits on one or more planes into either 5, 6, or 7.  Another Sanatana Dharma one classifies several into 4, though not exactly corresponding to the planes.  Detailed classifications may help in communication/understanding, but it is said one must be able to understand these in simpler holistic terms classified together as in the one with 4: advanced Sanatana Dharma--Raja Yoga in this case (and other traditions.)

Some Theosophists have told me HPB defines the '7 principles' ('7 spirits;' bodies & auras: consciousness levels) differently each time in her books as well as esoteric instructions, the latter of which I have not completely looked at in a while, but I do not think she really describes them differently.  Each plane of known human consciousness has a field of force perhaps like an aura, and energy waves in each plane form a subtle (sometimes called energetic) or dense matter vehicle of the force.  Spirit force has a soul vehicle.  Mind force has a bodily/soulful vehicle.  Life force has a bodily/soulful vehicle.  These combined forces, energies, and subtle matters all have a bodily dense matter vehicle.  One could say the 4 lowest planes each have a consciousness/spirit/intelligence aura/body (which HPB uses as synonyms but calls them 'principles') except the lowest has a material body, and one could say there is one 'principle' per plane, but it may be said the material body is not a principle.  The Raja Yoga classification of 4 principles has either 2, 1, or 1/2 planes per principle, and it is rather Platonic.

English may not describe well enough the 'principles in man,' and re-reading Theosophy's description of them makes me wonder what 'ethereal,' 'astral,' 'emotional,' 'mental,' 'soulful,' 'spiritual' really mean, and I used to think a vehicle of a principle was the principle on the plane below, though it actually seems to involve the aura or area having a body within it on the same plane and also material plane.  I still hope the 3-dimensional material plane in spacetime is really material-ethereal, but if Theosophy says little/nothing about space & time dimensions maybe it does not matter.  If life-ether is in and beyond the body anyway it does not really matter what dimensions life-ether has and if it is really all in a higher world than the dense material.

An interesting neo-Theosophical idea is that the 3 Logoi are on the highest plane and the 2nd is also on the 2nd and the 3rd is also on the 3rd.  Who knows, maybe it is also in original Theosophy... the idea is one way human spirit could be connected to deity's spirit, but I think there are other ways.  Anyone care to post on that?

As for the 4 quabala worlds, by the simplest guess based on circles drawn around sefira, I think each quabala world refers to 2 planes, one of which overlaps with one of the other worlds.  However there could be more complex guesses based on possible other quabala diagrams that are complex.