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GODS, MONADS, AND ATOMS - II

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__This transcendental application of geometry to Cosmic and divine theogony - the Alpha and the Omega of mystical conception - became dwarfed after Pythagoras by Aristotle. By omitting the Point and the Circle, and taking no account of the apex, he reduced the metaphysical value of the idea, and thus limited the doctrine of magnitude to a simple TRIAD - the line, the surface, and the body. His modern heirs, who play at Idealism, have interpreted these three geometrical figures as Space, Force, and Matter - "the potencies of an interacting Unity." * Materialistic Science, perceiving but the basic line of the manifested "triangle" - the plane of matter - translates it practically as (Father)-MATTER, (Mother)-MATTER, and (Son)-MATTER, and theoretically as Matter, Force, and Correlation.

__But to the average physicist, as remarked by a Kabalist, "Space, Force, Matter are what signs in algebra are to the mathematician, merely conventional symbols;" or "Force as force, and Matter as matter, are as absolutely unknowable as is the assumed empty space in which they are held to interact." As symbols representing abstractions, "the physicist bases reasoned hypotheses of the origin of things . . . . and sees three needs in what he terms creation: (a) a place wherein to create; (b) a medium by which to create; (c) a material from which to create. And in giving a logical expression to this hypothesis through the terms space, force, matter, he believes he has proved the existence of that which each of these represents as he conceives it to be." ?

__The physicist who regards Space merely as a representation of our mind, or extension unrelated to things in it, which Locke defined as capable of neither resistance nor motion; the paradoxical materialist, who would have a void there, where he can see no matter, would reject with the utmost contempt the proposition that "Space is a substantial though (apparently) an absolutely unknowable living Entity." (New Aspects, p. 9.) Such is, nevertheless, the Kabalistic teaching, and it is that of Archaic philosophy. Space is the real world, while our world is an artificial one. It is the One Unity throughout its infinitude: in its bottomless depths as on its illusive surface, a surface studded with countless phenomenal Universes, systems and mirage-like worlds. Nevertheless, to the Eastern Occultist, who is an objective Idealist at the bottom, in the real world, which is a Unity of Forces, there is "a connection of all matter in the plenum," as Leibnitz would say. This is symbolized in the Pythagorean Triangle.

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* See Von Hartmann's and Herbert Spencer's works.
? "New Aspects of Life," by Henry Pratt, M.D.
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__It consists of ten points inscribed pyramid-like (from one to the last four) within its three lines, and it symbolizes the Universe in the famous Pythagorean Decad. The upper single dot is a Monad, and represents a Unit-Point, which is the Unity from whence all proceeds, and all is of the same essence with it. While the ten dots within the triangle represent the phenomenal world, the three sides of the equilateral triangle which enclose the pyramid of dots are the barriers of noumenal Matter, or Substance, that separate it from the world of Thought. "Pythagoras considered a point to correspond in proportion to unity; a line to 2; a superficies to 3; a solid to 4; and he defined a point as a Monad having position, and the beginning of all things; a line was thought to correspond with duality, because it was produced by the first motion from indivisible nature, and formed the junction of two points. A superficies was compared to the number three because it is the first of all causes that are found in figures; for a circle, which is the principal of all round figures, comprises a triad, in centre - space - circumference. But a triangle, which is the first of all rectilineal figures, is included in a ternary, and receives its form according to that number; and was considered by the Pythagoreans to be the creator of all sublunary things. The four points at the base of the Pythagorean triangle correspond with a solid or cube, which combines the principles of length, breadth, and thickness, for no solid can have less than four extreme boundary points." (Pythagorean Triangle, p. 19.)

__It is argued that "the human mind cannot conceive an indivisible unit short of the annihilation of the idea with its subject." This is an error, as the Pythagoreans have proved, and a number of Seers before them, although there is a special training for it, and although the profane mind can hardly grasp it. But there are such things as metamathematics and metageometry. Even mathematics pure and simple proceed from the Universal to the particular, from the mathematical, hence indivisible Point, to solid figures. The teaching originated in India, and was taught in Europe by Pythagoras, who, throwing a veil over the Circle and the Point - which no living man can define except as incomprehensible abstractions - laid the origin of the differentiated Cosmic matter in the basic or horizontal line of the Triangle. Thus the latter became the earliest of geometrical figures. The author of "New Aspects of Life" and of the Kabalistic Mysteries - objects to the objectivization, so to speak, of the Pythagorean conception and use of the equilateral triangle, and calls it a misnomer. His argument that a solid equilateral body - "one whose base, and each of its sides, form equal triangles - must have four co-equal sides or surfaces, while a triangular plane will as necessarily possess five," demonstrates on the contrary the grandeur of the conception in all its esoteric application to the idea of the pregenesis, and the genesis of Kosmos. Granted, that an ideal triangle, depicted by mathematical, imaginary lines "can have no sides at all, being simply a phantom of the mind (if sides be imputed to which, they must be the sides of the object it constructively represents)." But in such case most of the scientific hypotheses are no better than "phantoms of the mind"; they are unverifiable, except on inference, and have been adopted merely to answer scientific necessities. Furthermore, the ideal triangle - "as the abstract idea of a triangular body, and, therefore, as the type of an abstract idea" - accomplished and carried out to perfection the double symbolism intended. As an emblem applicable to the objective idea, the simple triangle became a solid. When repeated in stone on the four cardinal points, it assumed the shape of the Pyramid? - the symbol of the phenomenal merging into the noumenal Universe of thought - at the apex of the four triangles; and, as an "imaginary figure constructed of three mathematical lines," it symbolized the subjective spheres - those lines "enclosing a mathematical space - which is equal to nothing enclosing nothing." Because, to the senses and the untrained consciousness of profane and scientist, everything beyond the line of differentiated matter - i.e., outside of, and beyond the realm of even the most spiritual substance - has to remain for ever equal to nothing. It is the AIN-SOPH - the No-THING.

__Yet these "phantoms of the mind" are in truth no greater abstractions than the abstract ideas in general upon evolution and physical development - e.g., Gravity, Matter, Force, etc. - on which the exact sciences are based. Our most eminent chemists and physicists are earnestly pursuing the not hopeless attempt of finally tracing to its hiding-place the protyle, or the basic line of the Pythagorean triangle. The latter is, as said, the grandest conception imaginable, as it symbolizes both the ideal and the visible universes.? For if "the possible unit is only a possibility as an actuality of nature, as an individual of any kind," and as every individual natural object is capable of division, and by division loses its unity, or ceases to be a unit, ? it is so only in the realm of exact sciences in a world as deceptive as it is illusive. In the realm of the Esoteric sciences the unit divided ad infinitum, instead of losing its unity, approaches with every division the planes of the only eternal REALITY. The eye of the SEER can follow and behold it in all its pregenetic glory. This same idea of the reality of the subjective, and the unreality of the objective universes, is found at the bottom of the Pythagorean and Platonic teachings - limited to the Elect alone; for Porphyry, speaking of the Monad and the Duad, says that the former only was considered substantial and real, "that most simple Being, the cause of all unity and the measure of all things."
??????????????????????????????? In the world of Form, having found its expression in the Pyramids, Symbolism has in them both a triangle and a square, with their four co-equal triangles or surfaces, the four basic points, and the fifth - the apex.
? "New Aspects of Life."
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__But the Duad, although the origin of Evil, or Matter - thence unreal in philosophy - is still Substance during Manvantara, and is often called the third monad, in Occultism, and the connecting line as between two Points, . . . or Numbers which proceeded from THAT, "which was before all Numbers," as expressed by Rabbi Barahiel. And from this Duad proceeded all the Scintillas of the three upper and the four lower worlds or planes - which are in constant interaction and correspondence. This is a teaching which the Kabala has in common with Eastern Occultism. For in the occult philosophy there are the "ONE Cause" and the "Primal Cause," which latter thus becomes, paradoxically, the second, as clearly expressed by the author of the "Qabbalah, from the philosophical writings of Ibn Gabirol," - "in the treatment of the Primal cause, two things must be considered, the Primal Cause per se, and the relation and connection of the Primal Cause with the visible and unseen universe." Thus he shows the early Hebrews following in the steps of the Oriental philosophy - Chaldean, Persian, Hindu, Arabic, etc. Their Primal Cause was designated at first "by the triadic Shaddai, the (triune) Almighty, subsequently by the Tetragrammaton, YHVH, symbol of the Past, Present, and Future," and, let us add, of the eternal IS, or the I AM. Moreover, in the Kabala the name YHVH (or Jehovah) expresses a He and a She, male and female, two in one, or Hokhmah and Binah, and his, or rather their Shekinah or synthesizing spirit (grace), which makes again of the Duad a Triad. This is demonstrated in the Jewish Liturgy for Pentecost, and the prayer, "In the name of Unity, of the Holy and Blessed Hu (He), and His Shekinah, the Hidden and Concealed Hu, blessed be YHVH (the Quaternary) for ever." "Hu is said to be masculine and YAH feminine, together they make the one YHVH. One, but of a male-female nature. The Shekinah is always considered in the Qabbalah as feminine" (p. 175). And so it is considered in the exoteric Puranas, for Shekinah is no more than Sakti - the female double or lining of any god, in such case. And so it was with the early Christians whose Holy Spirit was feminine, as Sophia was with the Gnostics. But in the transcendental Chaldean Kabala or "Book of Numbers," "Shekinah" is sexless, and the purest abstraction, a State, like Nirvana, not subject or object or anything except an absolute PRESENCE.

__Thus it is only in the anthropomorphised systems (such as the Kabala has now greatly become) that Shekinah-Sakti is feminine. As such she becomes the Duad of Pythagoras, the two straight lines of the symbol that can never meet, which therefore form no geometrical figure and are the symbol of matter. Out of this Duad, when united in one basic line of the triangle on the lower plane (the upper Triangle of the Sephirothal Tree), emerge the Elohim, or Deity in Cosmic Nature, with the true Kabalists the lowest designation, translated in the Bible "God" (see the same work and page).? Out of these issue the Scintillas.
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? Such recent works as the Qabbalah of Mr. Isaac Myer and of Mr. S. L. MacGregor Mathers, fully justify our attitude towards the Jehovistic Deity. It is not the transcendental, philosophical, and highly metaphysical abstraction of the original Kabalistic thought - Ain-Soph-Shekinah-Adam-Kadmon, and all that follows - that we oppose, but the crystallization of all these into the highly unphilosophical, repulsive, and anthropomorphic Jehovah, the androgynous and finite deity for which eternity, omnipotence, and omniscience are claimed. We do not war against the IDEAL REALITY, but the hideous theological Shadow.
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