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472 the; secret doctrine.
One thing is thus undeniably proven. The more we study their
Hierarchies and find out their identity, the more proofs we acquire
that there is
not one of the past or present personal Gods, known to
us from the earliest days of history, that does not belong to the
stage of cosmic manifestation.
third
In every religion we find the Concealed
Deity forming the ground work; then the Ray therefrom, that falls into
primordial Cosmic Matter, the first manifestation ;
result, the dual Male and Female abstract Force personified,
stage ;
then the Androgyne
the second
this finally separates itself, in the third, into Seven Forces, called
the Creative Powers by all the ancient religions, and the Virtues of
God by the Christians. The later explanations and abstract metaphysical
qualifications have not prevented the Roman and Greek
Churches from worshipping these "Virtues" under the personifications
and distinct names of the Seven Archangels. In the Book of Drusc/mjt*
in the Talmud, a distinction between these groups is given which is the
correct Kabalistical explanation.
It says:
There are three Groups (or Orders) of Sephiroth. ist. The Sephiroth called the
"Divine Attributes" [abstract].
2nd. The Physical or Sidereal Sephiroth [personal]
—one group of seven, the other of ten. 3rd. The metaphysical Sephiroth, or periphrasis
of Jehovah, who are the first three Sephiroth [Kether, Chokmah and Binah],
the rest of the seven being the (personal) seven Spirits of the Presence [also of the
planets].
The same division has to be applied to the primary, secondary and
tertiary evolution of Gods in every Theogony, if one wishes to translate
the meaning esoterically. We must not confuse the purely metaphysical
personifications of the abstract attributes of Deity, with their
reflection—the Sidereal Gods. This reflection, however, is in reality
the objective expression of the abstraction; living Entities and the
models formed on that divine Prototype. Moreover, the three metaphysical
Sephiroth, or the "periphrasis of Jehovah," are w^/ Jehovah.
It is the latter himself, with the additional titles of Adonai, Klohim,
Sabbaoth, and the numerous names lavished on him, who is the periphrasis
of the Shaddai Old)), the Omnipotent. The name is a circumlocution,
indeed, a too abundant figure of Jewish rhetoric, and has
always been denounced by the Occultists. To the Jewish Kabalists,
and even the Christian Alchemists and Rosicrucians, Jehovah was a
convenient screai, unified by the folding of its many panels, and adopted
* First Treatise, p. 59.