Cover

List of Illustrations

Foreword

Preface to the Second Edition

Letter from the author to M. Ad. Franck

Letter from M. Ad. Franck to the author

Letter from the author to the Marquis Saint-Yves d'Alveydre

Notes on the Qabalistic Tradition by Saint-Yves d'Alveydre

Part One: The Divisions of the Qabalah

The Hebrew Tradition and the Classification of Related Works

The Massorah

The Mishna

The Qabalah

Part Two: The Teachings of the Qabalah

The Elements of the Qabalah in Ten Lessons by Eliphas Lévi

General Thoughts on the Qabalah by Sedir

Systematic Résumé of the Qabalah

1. Preliminary Exposé - Division of the Subject

2. The Hebrew Alphabet

3. The Divine Names

4. The Sephiroth after Stanislas de Guaita

5. The Philosophy of the Qabalah

6. The Soul According to the Qabalah

Part Three: The Texts

The Sepher Yetzirah

1. General Exposition

2. The Sephiroth or the Ten Numerations

3. The Twenty-two Letters

4. The Three Principals

5. The Seven Doubles

6. The Twelve Singles

7. List of Correspondences: Derivatives of the Letters: General Résumé: Remarks: The Gates of Understanding: The 32 Paths of Wisdom: The Date of the ‘Sepher Yetzirah’: Extracts from the Zohar: The Practical Qabalah (The 72 Spirits)

Part Four: Summary Bibliography of the Qabalah

Introduction to the Bibliography of the Qabalah

1. Preface

2. Principal Qabalistic Bibliographies

3. Our Sources

Classification by Languages

1. Works in French

2. Works in Latin

3. Works in German

4. Principal Treatises in Hebrew

5. Works in English

6. Works in Spanish

Classification by Subject Matter

1. Works on the Mishna

2. Works on the Targum and Massorah

3. Works on the Talmud

4. Works on the Qabalah in General

5. Works on the Sephiroth

6. Works on the Sepher Yetzirah

7. Works on the Practical Qabalah

Appendix

Alphabetical Table of Authors mentioned in the Bibliography

Alphabetical Table of Works mentioned in the Bibliography

Bibliography of Works on the Qabalah by Dr Marc Haven

Bibliography

The Qabalah of the Hebrews by the Chevalier Drach

1. The Written Law and the Two Oral Laws, one Legal, the other Mystical or Qabalistic

2. Principal Doctors of the Qabalah. The Zohar

3. Tracts and Books Complementary to the Zohar

4. Rule for Quoting from the Zohar

images

1. Qabalistic Doctrine of Emanation. The Ten Sephiroth or Splendours. The Three Supreme Splendours

2. The Seven Splendours as Denominationally Understood, or the Divine Attributes

3. The Seven Spirits of the Apocalypse I:4

4. The Seven Radiant Lights of the Apocalypse IV:5. The Seven Eyes of Jehova in Zacharia IV:10

5. The Qabalistic Tree and Nolito Tangere

6. Extracts from Qabalistic Books

FOREWORD

In 1865, Gérard Encausse, better known as Papus, was born in La Corogna, a little town in Spain. His French father was a doctor in chemistry of more than local fame, while his mother was a highly intelligent Spanish lady. Papus's relationship with is parents was excellent and there is no doubt that his father's medical interests were instrumental in shaping the young boy's later career. It must, indeed, have been very stimulating to have had a father who not only invented a new method of treating illnesses—feeding and renewing the organism with the essence of plants and minerals via the skin, and not via the stomach, by means of steam-baths—but whose unorthodox methods proved to be effective as well.

This same unorthodox approach characterized Papus's start to his medical studies in Paris. Instead of spending his spare time in the usual easy way, he became a regular visitor of the Bibliothèque Nationale and the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal to study alchemical texts, the Hebrew language and Rosicrucian writings. During this period he adopted as nom de plume the name PAPUS, i.e. ‘physician‘.

The word Papus was used for the first time by Apollonius of Tyana (first century A.D. in his Nuctameron, in order to indicate the first genius of the first hour, i.e. medicine. The Nuctameron, known largely through Eliphas Lévi's translation, is actually a magical ritual, having as its central and emanative force, the twelve symbolic hours which correspond with the twelve signs of the Zodiac and the allegorical labours of Hercules, representing the various steps of initiation.

Under this pseudonym, the young Gérard Encausse wrote his extensive works. His zeal can be judged by the simple fact that even while fulfilling his military service he could not stop working. On the contrary, during these years, his Magie pratique and his Traité méthodique de science occulte were born, a miraculous achievement for a man being only in his mid-twenties, and proof of an exceptionally talented mind. Most artists and scientists of great fame have reached their finest efforts at an early age and Papus certainly confirms this rule. The greater part of his work was produced between 1884 and 1897, between the ages of nineteen and thirty-two, and most of what he wrote after this was either an elaboration of earlier thoughts or of a more historical character, such as the books he wrote on Martinism.

One exception should be mentioned; the booklet Faust de Goethe (written in 1914 and published in 1921), in which esoteric treatise Papus explains the motivation behind the use of pentacles, their mechanism and their influence on the astral plane. This brochure is still a must for all who want to grasp the esoteric background of Goethe's thinking. It also goes without saying that Papus contributed to all the important occult periodicals of his day, such as Le Lotus, L'Initiation and Voile d'Isis, and many treasures from his pen can be found in these reviews.

Papus, then, could look back upon considerable achievement in the occult sphere at an age when most ordinary people are only first starting to think. Few human beings, indeed, can say when obtaining their degree—Papus got his Doctorate of Medicine in 1894—that the bulk of their mental activity has already been printed and that their efforts have already been acknowledged by the Esoteric world. In this respect one only has to remember that in 1888, being only 23 years old, Papus was elected a member of the General Council of the Theosophical Society, on the instigation of Colonel Olcott, co-founder of the Theosophical Society and right-hand man of Mme H.P. Blavatsky.

The question now arises: was this reputation justified? Even though Papus was awarded many high distinctions by the governments of France, Portugal, Russia, Turkey, etc., and held many important masonic and rosicrucian functions, it did not necessarily mean that his fame would be a lasting one. Nevertheless, we are on safe ground when saying that his reputation as a great and honest occult philosopher was justified. Not only have many of his books and brochures been translated into several foreign languages; English, German, Italian, Russian, Czechoslovakian and Spanish (about sixty titles!), but they have been reprinted many times as well. There have been no less than seven reprints of his Traité élémentaire de science, and Le Tarot des Bohémiens, which took up the idea of a connection between the Qabalah and the Tarot, and is still a standard work on the subject, is in its sixth impression, while La Cabbale is now in its eighth edition.

Quite naturally a man of such outstanding talent came into close contact with the contemporary celebrities. In his early youth Papus met the Marquis Joseph Saint-Yves d'Alveydre (1842-1910), in many ways the successor of Fabre d'Olivet (1767-1825), and author of the visionary Mission des Juifs (1884), one of the most revealing works on the interchange between destination, occultism and politics. Saint-Yves, who has created with his Archéomètre a unique Qabalistic canon in which the Watan-alphabet is reconstituted for the first time, and was initiated both in western and oriental traditions, became Papus's first master. It was Saint-Yves who convinced Papus that he had to leave spiritualism and to start off on the road of mysticism. A development which already had begun in 1882, when Papus wrote: ‘We know how much materialism has benefited from the doctrine of evolution. Nevertheless it has been the profound study of this doctrine of evolution which has shown to me the very weakness of materialism…Oh, yes, the mineral does evolve…but on one condition, which is that the physico-chemical forces and the sun itself assist this phenomenon, which means, on condition that the superior forces, by their evolution, sacrifice themselves to the evolution of the lower forces…Summing up: each phase in development, each evolution has asked the sacrifice of one, and more often, of two, superior forces. The doctrine of evolution is incomplete. It represents only one side of the facts and neglects the other. It reveals the law of the struggle for life, but it forgets the law of sacrifice, which rules all phenomena….’

His medical knowledge, moreover, enabled him to rediscover the deep truth of the old hermetic laws like the doctrine of ‘the three principles of man’ and ‘the principle of the astral body’. He writes: ‘A serious investigation allows me to confirm the truth of the hermetic theory on the constitution of man; a theory which has not changed since the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty, that is to say, for thirty-six centuries…The same theory enables us to solve the problem of death and of life thereafter.…’ In 1897 Papus came forward with practical evidence to support such postulations by publishing La magie et l'hypnose, which contains only factual material and proof of most things connected with astral qualities and phenomena.

But his development continued and gradually he went through the phases of all esoteric thinkers, finally stating: ‘First man believes what is told. Then he wants to find out for himself: the phase of rationalism. Then man discovers that everything is alive, that all things are alive in a central force, in God: man becomes pantheistic…Finally man wants to penetrate this central force, to live in and become one with it, with God: man has become mystic…’

Before he had reached this mystic level, however, Papus first launched his Traité méthodique de science occulte, a true encyclopedia on occult sciences, containing rare texts from Kircher, Fabre d'Olivet, Wronski, and others; and a second work, characteristic of the rational-magic phase he then passed through: Traité élémentaire de science occulte, and based according to the typical disposition of the magical student, on the triangle: theory, adaptation, realization.

Less magical, but in the end far more epoch-making, was his Tarot des Bohémiens (1889) which—inspired by Court de Gébelin's (predecessor of Fabre d'Olivet) Monde Primitif (1775), the first book representing Egyptian Tarot illustrations, and by Eliphas Lévi's ideas—tries to establish the connection between the Qabalah and the Tarot, by linking the four suits with the four letters of the Tetragrammaton. It was, in fact, the Tarot des Bohémiens that sparked off the interest in and the abundance of literature on this mysterious conception; to some a simple method of divination, to most, however, a system of initiation showing man in his successive phases of development. Le Tarot des Bohémiens is basically an essay on numbers and Hebrew letters, and as such it is a logical consequence of the translation Papus made (in 1887) of the Sepher Yetzirah, one of the main Qabalistic texts, and in a way a forerunner of his main work on Jewish occult tradition entitled La Cabbale, tradition secrète de I Occident, first published in 1892.

The sources of inspiration for Papus's Qabalistic thinking are found in Fabre d'Olivet, from whom he obtained his notion of esoteric mysteries as concealed in the Hebrew language; in Prof. Ad. Franck, a French scholar on Qabalistic literature and its history; in Eliphas Lévi, who discovered a connection between the Qabalah and the Tarot; and in his spiritual master Saint Yves d'Alveydre, from whom Papus derived a systematic view of Jewish history.

Papus's opinion was that the Qabalah was attributable to Moses, and Biblical history was sufficient to prove to Papus that the Qabalah was the most perfect summary of the Egyptian mysteries and as such, via Gnostic, Rosicrucian, Masonic and Martinistic ideas and fraternities, the key-stone of all western tradition. Though this point of view has sometimes been denied (e.g. by A.E. Waite, in spite of his recognition and admiration of both Lévi and Papus) it is to most occult authorities an established fact, as can be seen in the writings of the white-Russian doctor and initiate Skariatine, who under the pseudonym Enel, wrote his Langue sacrée, which most convincingly confirms Papus's theories by tracing basic Qabalistic problems back to the sacred Egyptian writings.

Papus's opinions on the Tarot, which he calls ‘the oldest book of the world’, can best be understood in relation to his belief in the Egyptian origin of the Qabalah. As the twenty-two Trump Cards correspond with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, the origin of which can be traced back to the Egyptian hieroglyphics, the Tarot must also be of Egyptian origin. In this context it becomes clear when Papus states: ‘We can now understand why Pythagoras, initiated in Egypt into the secrets of the holy word “iod-hé-vau-hé”, replaced this word in his esoteric teachings by the sequel of the four first numbers of “Tetractys”.’ (Tarot of the Bohemians, chapter IV). It might be said here, that most occult authors consider Egypt to be the birthplace of the Tarot and that this reasoning is also consistent with their views on the origin of the Qabalah.

Papus's La Cabbale is the more valuable since it contains, apart from the theoretical part, his translation of the Sepher Yetzirah, Eliphas Lévi's famous Ten lessons on the Qabalah, an extensive Qabalistic bibliography, and parts of Rabbi Drach's important and rare treatise La Cabbale des Hébreux and a profound analysis of the rabbi's theories. (In 1884 Drach published his De l'Harmonie entre l'Eglise et al Synagogue ou perpétuité et catholicité de la religion universelle, in which most solid, but highly unorthodox opinions are brought forward on the Qabalah, Messianism and rabbinical traditions).

Though La Cabbale constitutes a peak amongst all the works of Papus, we would nevertheless like to mention here, though it might be considered out of context, as one of his finest achievements: L'âme humaine avant la naissance et après la mort, since it represents the true, mystical Papus at his finest, and since we believe the mystical phase to be the most decisive one in man's life. Written as a key to the gnostic Valentine's Pistis Sophia, it actually provides us with a final description of the road of man's spiritual evolution. In total concordance with the teachings of Jacob Boehme and Louis Claude de Saint Martin (1743-1803), whose theories consisting of Qabalistic, gnostic and Bohemian elements, exercised a great influence in England, Germany and Italy, Papus states in L'âme humaine: ‘…The Illuminate becomes a mystic and when at last science is enlightened by faith and faith consolidated by science, one has to devote his spiritualized faculties to the evolution of the poorer…One never reaches the Path of the Masters by means of the Astral Body: only the Spiritual Body is capable of doing so.’

No difference can be found between this and Eliphas Lévi's ‘Credo', which is to be expected as no fundamental differences should exist between the teachings of those men who discover and reach the road to enlightenment. However, both Eliphas Lévi and Papus suffered from the usual shortcomings of those who did not quite reach the ultimate goal, but in spite of and even because of their shortcomings, their works can lead man to the discovery and acknowledgment of the mysterious forces in life and to the possibility of understanding and mastering them.

From that awareness till spiritual life ‘il n'y a qu'un pas’. As such and as a concise and valuable introduction to the sacred science of the Hebrews, and therefore to the esoteric teachings of Christianity, this English translation of La Cabbale is offered. To quote Papus from one of his last lectures given shortly before his death in 1916: ‘Cabbale…richesses infinies. Il suffit simplement de savoir de quelle richesse il s'agit.’

W.N. Schors

To M. ADOLPHE FRANCK,

Member of the Institute,
Honorary professor of the college of France,
President of the National League Against Atheism.

My distinguished sir,

Will you permit me to dedicate to you this modest essay which I am now publishing on the subject of the Qabalah, a subject the elucidation of which is so important for the philosopher?

You were the first, not only in France but also in Europe, to bring forth a considerable work on the ‘religious philosophy of the Hebrews’, as you yourself call it. This work, which you alone could bring to a satisfactory conclusion thanks, on the one hand, to your perfect knowledge of the Hebrew language and, on the other, to your acquaintance with the history of philosophical doctrines, achieved a position of authority immediately upon publication and certainly has merited the traditions and imitations which have since followed. The few German critics who wished to find fault with you regarding the Qabalah have succeeded only in giving proof of their inadequacy and their prejudice. The 1889 edition will definitely match the success of that of 1843.

But since all of us who nowadays concern ourselves with such study owe such a debt of gratitude to our senior and teacher in this field, how can I personally hope to thank you for the unaccustomed honour you have bestowed on me by encouraging my efforts through the authority of your name, declaring that if you are not a mystic, at least you prefer to see those who come after you taking part in such research, rather than have them partake of the hopeless, anti-philosophical and, let us dare to say the word, anti-scientific doctrines of materialistic positivism.

At the very moment when we raised the shield of intellectual struggle against materialism, at the moment when all adepts of this doctrine, scattered through the Faculties of medicine, through the Press, through the highest and lowest levels of society, considered us as ‘dilettanti’, clerics or fools, the president of the National League Against Atheism came forward, braving all sarcasm, to protect us with the inarguable authority of a profound philosopher and ardent defender of spiritualism.

You showed that these savants, for the most part eminent men in the domain of analytical discovery, have been by their very specialization itself restricted, bound to a too hasty study of philosophy. This is the source of their scorn for a branch of human knowledge which, alone, could furnish them that synthesis of sciences which they so aspire to achieve; this is the source of their materialistic conclusions, of the unknowable and all other formulas indicative of the laziness of the human mind, unadapted to serious study and in a hurry to finish, without sounding the true value or social consequences of its affirmations.

Alongside the official line of religious or secular Universities, of scientific Academies and the Laboratories of Higher Learning, there has always existed an independent line, generally little known and therefore looked down upon, made up of researchers sometimes too steeped in philosophy, sometimes too taken with mysticism, but how interesting to study:

These adepts of Gnosis, these Alchemists, these disciples of Jacob Boehme, of Martinez Pasqualis or of Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin, are the only ones, however, never to have neglected the study of the Qabalah up to the moment when your work appeared to show they had at last found approbation, a leader in the person of one of the most eminent representatives of the University.

It is as an admirer and disciple of Saint-Martin and his doctrines that I myself take the liberty of thanking you, in the name of these ‘independents’, for the precious support that they have found in your person. And if, in conclusion, I dared to ask a request of you, it would be for your intercession on their behalf with the heads of your University.

In the works of Saint-Martin, in those of Fabre d'Olivet, Wronski, Lacuria and Louis Lucas, there is a series of studies which I find quite profound and not at all well-known, on psychology, morals and logic.

Certainly it would be useful, at the very least, to see on the schedule of our Higher Normal School the Traité des signes et des Idées by Saint-Martin, Les Missions by Saint Yves d'Alveydre or the Vero dorés de Pythagore by Fabre d'Olivet, as well as the system of psychology which forms the introduction to his Histoire philosophique du gene humain, or yet again the philosophical section of the médecine nouvelle or the Roman alchimigre by Louis Lucas, not to mention the Création de la Realité absolve by Wronski, albeit this latter is perhaps too technical and too abstractly presented.

You may say to me that these authors are ‘mystics’, writers whose erudition is not always what one might wish; but it is also a ‘mystic’ who requests that they be read more fully and with greater critical care, if only to better understand the various evolutions of the human mind.

However my request may be greeted, I shall always be thankful to you, distinguished sir, for all you have done for our cause.

What progress we have made has not been without effort or struggle, and we will continue in this way, as we have begun, our labour and our published works answering the attacks with which our books and our very persons are so consistently harassed. In truth, any sincere work lasts a goodly time; but what remains, after only a few years, of perfidious and unjust calumny? A little bitterness and much pity in the hearts of the victims, even more remorse in the souls of the attackers, and nothing more.

But if, with the passage of time, these existing works lose some of their dynamic power, there is still one sentiment which those who come later must feel as strongly as we, and that is a profound gratitude for the one who did not hesitate in the most difficult moments to encourage our efforts by supporting them with all the respect and authority which attaches itself to a great name.

In fullest sincerity,

PAPUS

NOTES
ON THE QABALISTIC TRADITION

My Dear Friend,

It is a pleasure for me to answer your kind letter. I have nothing to add to your remarkable book on the Jewish Qabalah. It has taken a position of eminence from the well deserved appreciation shown it by the late M. Franck of the Institute, the foremost authority in this field.

Your work completes his, not only due to its erudition, but also to its bibliography and the exegesis of this quite particular tradition; I find this fine book definitive.

But, aware of my respect for tradition and, concurrently, my need for universality and verification using all known procedures, acquainted furthermore with my works, you do not seem to fear that I might enlarge on the subject; on the contrary, this is precisely what you ask of me.

In reality I have accepted only conditionally the books of the Jewish Qabalah, no matter their interest. But having once taken note of them, my personal research has been borne on the universality from which these archaeological documents evolved, and on the principle as well as the laws which might have motivated these actions of the human mind.

For the Jews, the Qabalah came from the Chaldeans through Daniel and Esdras.

For the Israelites who preceded the dispersion of the ten non-Jewish tribes, the Qabalah came from the Egyptians through Moses.

For the Chaldeans as for the Egyptians, the Qabalah was a part of what all the metropolitan Universities called Wisdom, that is, the synthesis of sciences and arts reduced to their common Principle. This Principle was the Word.

An invaluable witness from pre-Mosaic patriarchal antiquity affirms that this wisdom was lost or cast away about 3,000 years before our Lord. This witness is Job and the antiquity of the book is fixed by the position of the constellations he mentions. ‘What has happened to Wisdom, where is it then?’ asks this holy patriarch.

According to Moses, the loss of previous unity, the breaking-up of patriarchal Wisdom are indicated by the division of Languages and the Era of Nimrod. This Chaldean epoch corresponds to that of Job.

Another witness from patriarchal Antiquity is Brahmanism. It has preserved all the traditions of the past, superimposed like the geological layers of the earth. All those who have studied it from a modern point of view have been struck both by its documentary richness and by the impossibility of a satisfactory classification, from a chronological as well as scientific angle. The division into brahmanic, vishnavist and sivaist sects, to mention only a few, adds to this confusion.

It is nonetheless true that the Brahmins of Nepal date the rupture of ancient universality and the primordial unity of teachings from the beginning of the Kali-Yuga.

This primitive synthesis carried, well before the name of Brahma, that of Ishva-Ra, Jesus-King: Jesus Rex Patriarcharum, say our litanies.

Allusion is made to this primordial synthesis by Saint John at the beginning of his Gospel; but the Brahmins are far from suspecting that their Ishva-Ra is our Jesus, King of the Universe, the Creative Word and the Principle of the human word. Otherwise, they would all be Christians.

The oblivion into which fell the Patriarchal Wisdom of Ishva-Ra dates from the time of Krishna, the founder of Brahmanism and its Trimurti. On this point again there is agreement among the Brahmins, Job and Moses, as to the fact as well as the historical epoch.

Since the time of Babel, no people, no race, no University has possessed more than fragmentary remains of the ancient Universality of divine, human and natural knowledge, reduced to their Principle: the Word-Jesus. Saint Augustine designates this primordial Synthesis of the Word under the name Religio vera.

The rabbinical Qabalah, of relatively recent composition, was known thoroughly as to its written or oral sources by the Jewish adepts of the first century. Certainly it contained no secrets for a man of such worth and knowledge as Gamaliel. Nor did it hold any for its first and most eminent disciple, Saint Paul, who became the apostle of the resurrected Christ.

Here are the words of Saint Paul in his first epistle to the Corinthians, chapter II, verses 6, 7, 8:

Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away.

But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification.

None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

All these words are carefully weighed, like gold and diamonds, and there is not one which is not infinitely precious and precise. They proclaim the insufficiency of the Jewish Qabalah.

Having thus cast some light on the Universality of the question which interests you, let us concentrate this light on the nevertheless precious fragment of ancient wisdom which is or may be the Jewish Qabalah.

First and foremost, let us examine the exact meaning of the word Qabalah.

This word has two significations, according to whether it is written, as with the Jews, with a Q that is, the twentieth letter of the Assyrian alphabet, bearing the number 100, or with a C, the eleventh letter of this same alphabet, bearing the number 20.

In the first case, the word signifies Transmission, Tradition, and the question remains indecisive; for the worth of the thing transmitted is proportionate to the value of the transmitter.

We believe that the Jews were quite faithful in their transmission of what they had received from the savant Chaldeans, with their writing and the recasting of the former books by Ezra, himself following the guidance of the great Master of the University of Magi of Chaldea, Daniel. But, from a scientific point of view, this does not advance the question, which is in fact drawn backward to an inventory of Assyrian documents and beyond to the primordial source. In the second case, Ca-Ba-La signifies Power, La, XXII, CaBa, since C = 20, B = 2.

But now the question finds an exact resolution, for it concerns the scientific character which patriarchal antiquity assigned to alphabets of twenty-two numerical letters.

Must we make of these alphabets a racial monopoly by referring to them as Semitic? Perhaps, if such a monopoly is real; not, however, if the opposite is true.

Now, according to my investigation of ancient alphabets of Ca-Ba-La, of XXII letters, the most hidden, the most secret which certainly served as a prototype, not only for all others of the same kind, but also for the Vedic and Sanskrit symbols and letters, was an Aryan alphabet. This is the one I was so happy to communicate to you; I was given it by eminent Brahmins who never once thought to ask me its secret.

It differs from the others, called Semitic, in that its letters are morphological, that is, each form holds its particular meaning, which makes of it an absolutely unique variety. In addition, an attentive study has shown me that these same letters are the prototypes of the zodiacal and planetary signs, a fact which is also of great importance.

The Brahmins call this alphabet Vatan; and it seems to go back to the first human race, for, through its five rigorously geometric mother forms, it provides its own signature, Adam, Eve and Adamah.

Moses seems to speak of it in the nineteenth verse of the second chapter of his Sepher Barashith. Moreover, this alphabet is written from bottom to top, and its letters are grouped so as to form morphological images. Pandits erase these characters from their slates as soon as the lesson of the guru is finished. They also write it from left to right, like Sanskrit, thus, in the European fashion. For all these reasons, this prototypical alphabet of all the Kaba-Lim belongs to the Aryan race.

Therefore this type of alphabet can no longer be called Semitic, since it is not a monopoly held by the races which, rightly or wrongly, we designate as such.

But we can and ought to call alphabets of this kind schematic. Schema signifies not only a sign of the Word, but also Glory. This double meaning must be kept in mind while reading the above passage of Saint Paul.

The same sort of thing exists in other languages like Slavonian. For example, the etymology of the word slavic is slovo and slava, signifying word and glory.

These meanings carry a weight of conviction, which Sanskrit will serve to deepen. Sama, which can also be found in languages of Celtic origin, signifies similarity, identity, proportionality, equivalence, etc.

Further on we will see the application of these ancient meanings.

For the moment, let us summarize what we have previously said.

The word Cabala, as we understand it, signifies the Alphabet of XXII Powers, or the power of the XXII Letters of this Alphabet. This type of alphabet has an Aryan or Japhethetic prototype, and can be quite justifiably designated under the name of alphabet of the Word or of Glory.

Word and Glory! Why are these two words brought together in two ancient languages as far removed from each other as Slavonian and Chaldean? This is due to a primordial constitution of the human Mind in a common Principle, at once scientific and religious: the cosmological Word and its Equivalents.

Jesus, in his last mysterious prayer, throws light, here as everywhere, on the historic mystery which confronts us here:

‘Oh, Father! Crown me with the Glory which was mine before the creation of this World!’

The Incarnate Word makes allusion here to His Work, to His Creation, acting as the Creative Word, a Creation designated by the name of divine and eternal World of Glory, prototype of the astral and temporal World created by the Alahim on this incorruptible model.

The creative Principle is the Word; on this point the voice of Antiquity is unanimous. To speak and to create are synonymous in all languages.

With the Brahmins, documents anterior to the cult of Brahma give ISOu-Ra, Jesus-Rex, as the creative Word.

For the Egyptians, the books of Hermes Trismegistus say the same; and OShI-Ri is Jesus-Rex read from right to left.

For the Thracians, Orpheus, initiated to the Mysteries of Egypt toward the same epoch as Moses, wrote a book entitled The Divine Word.

As for Moses himself, the Principle, the Beginning, is the first word and the subject of the first sentence of his Sepher. It is not yet a question of God in Essence, IHOH, who is not named before the seventh day, but of His Word, creator of the divine Hexad: BaRa-Shith. BaRa means speak and create; Shith means Hexad. In Sanskrit, we find the same meanings: BaRa-Shath.

This word BaRa-Shith has occasioned innumerable discussions. Saint John, like Moses, sets it before us at the very outset of his Gospel, and says, in Syrian, a Qabalistic language of XXII letters: The Beginning is the Word. Jesus said: I am the Beginning.

The exact meaning is thus clarified by Jesus and accords with all anterior pre-Mosaic Universality.

The foregoing explains why truly ancient Universities considered the creative Word as the Influence of which the human Word is the exact Reflection, while the alphabetical process exactly follows the Planisphere of the Cosmos.

The alphabetical process, together with all its equivalents, represents then the eternal world of Glory; and the cosmic process represents the world of astral heavens.

This is why the Prophet-King, echo of all patriarchal Antiquity, says: Cœli enarrant Dei Gloriam. Or in English: The astral world tells of the world of divine Glory. The invisible Universe speaks through the visible.

Two things remain to be determined: 1. the cosmic process of the ancient schools; 2. that of the corresponding alphabets.

Firstly, III parent forms: the centre, the radius or diameter and the circle; XII involutionary signs; VII evolutionary signs.

Secondly, to which the ancients gave first place: III constructive letters; XII involutionary; VII evolutionary.

In both cases:

III + XII + VII = XXII = CaBa,

the pronunciation of:

C= 20, B = 2, a total of 22, C.Q.F.D.

Thus the alphabets of twenty-two letters corresponded to a solar or solar-lunar Zodiac embodying an evolutionary septenary.

These were the schematic alphabets.

The others, following the same method, came to correspond, with 24 letters, to the hourly periods; with 28 letters, the lunar periods; with 30, the solar-lunar monthly periods; with 36, the decans, etc.

In alphabets of twenty-two letters, the central one, the Emissive of going forth and the Remissive of return, was I or Y or J; and this letter, posed on a triangle, formed with two others the name of the Word and of Jesus: IShVa-(Ra), OShI-(Ri).

Contrary to this, all those who have embraced the naturalist and lunar schism have taken the Central letter to be M, which rules the second elementary trigon.

The entire Vedic, then Brahmanic, system was thus arranged after the fact by Krishna at the beginning of the Kali-Yuga. This is the key to the Book of the Wars of IEVA, wars between the Central I or Y and the usurper M.

You, my dear friend, have seen the contemporary proofs, that is, proofs of simple observation and scientific experimentation, with which I have re-established and verified the most ancient tradition. Thus I will restrict myself here only to what is necessary in the elucidation of the historical fact of the Qabalah.

In accordance with the patriarchs who preceded them, the Brahmins divided human languages into two groups: 1. Devanagaries, languages of the celestial city or of civilization reduced to the divine cosmological Principle; 2. Pracrites, languages of wild or anarchic civilizations. Sanskrit is a Devanager language of forty-nine letters; Vedic also, with its eighty letters or symbols derived from the OM, that is, the letter M.

These two languages are Qabalistic in their particular systematization, with the letter M forming the point of departure and of return. But they have been, from their inception till the present day, articulated in a temple language of twenty-two letters, whose primitive Centre was I.

All corrections thus become possible, even easy, thanks to this key, to the great triumph and glory of Jesus, Word of IEVE, in other words, the primordial Synthesis of the earliest Patriarchs.

Present day Brahmins ascribe to their alphabet of twenty-two letters a magical virtue; but for us this word signifies only superstition and ignorance.

Superstition, decadence and paralysis of archaeological elements or more or less altered forms, but which careful study can sometimes, as in this case, link to an earlier system of teaching, conscious and scientific, not metaphysical or mystical.

Ignorance of the facts, laws and principle which motivated this primordial teaching.

Moreover, the lunar Vedo-brahmanic school is not the only one where science and its solar synthesis, the religion of the Word, have degenerated into magic. It is enough to investigate terrestrial trends of a general nature from the time of Babel onwards in order to become aware of a growing decadence which attributed more and more of a superstitious and magical character to ancient alphabets.

From Chaldea to Thessaly, from Scythia to Scandinavia, from the Koua of Fu-Hi and the Musnads of ancient Arabia to the Runes of the Varangians, this same degeneration can be observed.

In this as in everything, truth is far stranger than fiction, and you, my dear friend, are acquainted with this admirable truth.

And so, since no part of terrestrial Humanity is lost, just as nothing in the entire Cosmos can be lost, what was still is, testifying to the ancient universality about which Saint Augustine speaks in his Retractions.

The Brahmins participate in their personal Qabalah with the eighty Vedic signs, with the forty-nine letters of Devanager Sanskrit, with the nineteen vowels, semi-vowels and dipthongs, that is, the whole massorah which Krishna added to the Vatan or Adamic alphabet. The Arabs, Persians and Subahs do likewise with their lunar alphabets of twenty-eight letters, and the Moroccans with theirs, the Koreisch.

Also the Manchu Tartars with their mouth-oriented alphabet of thirty letters. The same observations can be made with the Tibetans, the Chinese, etc., with the same reservations pertaining as to the alterations of ancient Science concerning the cosmological equivalents of the Word.

It remains to be known in what order these XXII equivalents should be functionally arranged on the planisphere of the Cosmos.

You have before you, dear friend, a model which conforms exactly to that which has been legally registered under the name and title of archeometer.

You know that the keys to this precision instrument, destined for the higher studies, were given me by the Gospels, by certain precise words of Jesus linked to those of Saint Paul and Saint John.

Now allow me to recapitulate as briefly as possible.

All Asiatic and African religious Universities, equipped with cosmological alphabets, solar, solar-lunar, horary, lunar, monthly, etc., use their letters in a Qabalistic fashion.

Whether it is a question of pure Science, or Poetry interpreting Science or of divine Inspiration, all ancient books written in the devanagaries, and not pracrites, languages, cannot be understood without an understanding of the Qabalah of these languages.

But even these must be reduced to the XXII schematic equivalents, which in turn must be referred to their exact cosmological positions.

The Jewish Qabalah is thus motivated by the entire constitution of the human Mind; but it must be archeometered, that is, measured by its regulating Principle, verified on the precision instrument of the Word and primordial Synthesis.

I know not, dear friend, if these pages answer your expectations. I have necessarily summarized whole chapters in a few lines.

Be good enough then to excuse the imperfections and to find in all that precedes a simple testimony to my good will and my long-lasting feelings of friendship.

SAINT-YVES

10 January 1901

THE
QABALAH

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FOREWORD

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

To M. ADOLPHE FRANCK,

LETTER

FROM M. ADOLPHE FRANCK TO THE AUTHOR

To the Marquis SAINT-YVES d'Alveydre

NOTES
ON THE QABALISTIC TRADITION

THEQABALAH

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FOREWORD

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

To M. ADOLPHE FRANCK,

LETTERFROM M. ADOLPHE FRANCK TO THE AUTHOR

To the Marquis SAINT-YVES d'Alveydre

NOTESON THE QABALISTIC TRADITION

THE
QABALAH

LETTER

FROM M. ADOLPHE FRANCK TO THE AUTHOR

NOTES
ON THE QABALISTIC TRADITION