Sefirot

1.01 - Adam Kadmon and the Evolution, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
lights of the Sefiroth burst forth...
Gnosis in Sri Aurobindo

1.03 - THE ORPHAN, THE WIDOW, AND THE MOON, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[18] Another tradition to be considered in regard to the widow is the Cabala. There the abandoned Malchuth is the widow, as Knorr von Rosenroth says: [Almanah] Widow. This is Malchuth, when Tifereth is not with her.111 Tifereth112 is the son113 and is interpreted by Reuchlin as the Microcosm. Malchuth114 is Domina, the Mistress.115 She is also called Shekinah,116 the indwelling (of God), and virago.117 The Sefira Tifereth is the King, and in the usual arrangement of the Sefiroth he occupies the second place:
Kether
--
Kether, the Crown, corresponds to the upward-growing root of the Tree of the Sefiroth.118 Yesod119 signifies the genital region of the Original Man, whose head is Kether. Malchuth, conforming to the archetypal pattern, is the underlying feminine principle.120 In this wicked world ruled by evil Tifereth is not united with Malchuth.121 But the coming Messiah will reunite the King with the Queen, and this mating will restore to God his original unity.122 The Cabala develops an elaborate hierosgamos fantasy which expatiates on the union of the soul with the Sefiroth of the worlds of light and darkness, for the desire of the upper world for the God-fearing man is as the loving desire of a man for his wife, when he woos her.123 Conversely, the Shekinah is present in the sexual act:
The absconditus sponsus enters into the body of the woman and is joined with the abscondita sponsa. This is true also on the reverse side of the process, so that two spirits are melted together and are interchanged constantly between body and body. . . . In the indistinguishable state which arises it may be said almost that the male is with the female, neither male nor female,124 at least they are both or either. So is man affirmed to be composed of the world above, which is male, and of the female world below. The same is true of woman.125
--
[The Sefiroth] end in Malchuth or the moon, who is the last to descend and the first to ascend from the elemental world. For the moon is the way to heaven, so much so that the Pythagoreans named her the heavenly earth and the earthly heaven or star,128 because in the elemental world all inferior nature in respect to the heavenly, and the heavenly in respect to the intelligible world, is, as the Zohar says, feminine and passive, and is as the moon to the sun. In the same measure as [the moon] withdraws from the sun, until she is in opposition to him, so does her light increase in relation to us in this lower world, but diminishes on the side that looks upwards. Contrariwise, in her conjunction, when she is totally darkened for us, she is fully illuminated on that side which faces the sun. This should teach us that the more our intellect descends to the things of sense, the more it is turned away from intelligible things, and the reverse likewise.129
The identification of Malchuth with Luna forms a link with alchemy, and is another example of the process by which the patristic symbolism of sponsus and sponsa had been assimilated much earlier. At the same time, it is a repetition of the way the originally pagan hierosgamos was absorbed into the figurative language of the Church Fathers. But Vigenerus adds something that seems to be lacking in patristic allegory, namely the darkening of the other half of the moon during her opposition. When the moon turns upon us her fullest radiance, her other side is in complete darkness. This strict application of the Sol-Luna allegory might have been an embarrassment to the Church, although the idea of the dying Church does take account, to a certain extent, of the transience of all created things.130 I do not mention this fact in order to criticize the significance of the ecclesiastical Sol-Luna allegory. On the contrary I want to emphasize it, because the moon, standing on the borders of the sublunary world ruled by evil, has a share not only in the world of light but also in the daemonic world of darkness, as our author clearly hints. That is why her changefulness is so significant symbolically: she is duplex and mutable like Mercurius, and is like him a mediator; hence their identification in alchemy.131 Though Mercurius has a bright side concerning whose spirituality alchemy leaves us in no doubt, he also has a dark side, and its roots go deep.

1.07 - The Literal Qabalah (continued), #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Gabirol, Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, Philonism, and other systems have all left indelible traces (i.e. on the evolution of the Qabalah). But Christianity, be it remembered, besides being a debtor to Judaism, is a debtor to these sources as well ; so that what appears to be Christian may be, in reality, Jewish ; a development of the original material by an unbroken succession of Jewish minds. . . . But it is beyond dispute that the Christian Trinity and the trinities of the ten Sefirot lie in quite distinct planes."
On this subject I feel in my deepest heart that to Mr.

1.nb - A Poem for the Sefirot as a Wheel of Light, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
object:1.nb - A Poem for the Sefirot as a Wheel of Light
author class:Naftali Bacharach
--
English version by Jerome Rothenberg and Harris Lenowitz Original Language Hebrew (the rim) & going 'round the ten Sefirot of the ball & orbit of the world of first space . . . . . . . . . (the spokes) 1 crown light from light extreme light 2 wisdom splendor from splendor hidden light 3 understanding sparkle from sparkle sparkling light 4 greatness splendor from splendor pure light 5 power light from splendor of light pure 6 beauty sparkle from light light shining 7 victory light from sparkle light refined 8 majesty splendor from sparkle light bright 9 foundation sparkle from splendor purer light pure pure 10 kingdom most precious precious shining light is [bk1sm.gif] -- from A Big Jewish Book: Poems and Other Visions of the Jews from Tribal Times to the Present, Edited by Jerome Rothenberg

2.01 - THE ARCANE SUBSTANCE AND THE POINT, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[37] Further paradoxes: I am the black of the white and the red of the white and the yellow of the red;9 or The principle of the art is the raven, who flies without wings in the blackness of night and in the brightness of day.10 The stone is cold and moist in its manifest part, and in its hidden part is hot and dry.11 In lead is the dead life,12 or Burn in water and wash in fire.13 The Allegoriae sapientum speak of two figures, one of which is white and lacking a shadow, the other red and lacking the redness.14 A quotation from Socrates runs: Seek the coldness of the moon and ye shall find the heat of the sun.15 The opus is said to be a running without running, moving without motion.16 Make mercury with mercury.17 The philosophical tree has its roots in the air18 (this is probably a reference to the tree of the Sefiroth). That paradox and ambivalence are the keynotes of the whole work is shown by The Chymical Wedding: over the main portal of the castle two words are written: Congratulor, Condoleo.19
[38] The paradoxical qualities of Mercurius have already been discussed in a separate study.20 As Mercurius is the principal name for the arcane substance, he deserves mention here as the paradox par excellence. What is said of him is obviously true of the lapis, which is merely another synonym for the thousand-named arcane substance. As the Tractatus aureus de Lapide says: Our matter has as many names as there are things in the world.21 The arcane substance is also synonymous with the Monad and the Son of Man mentioned in Hippolytus:

2.01 - The Sefirot, #General Principles of Kabbalah, #Rabbi Moses Luzzatto, #Kabbalah
object:2.01 - The Sefirot
author class:Rabbi Moses Luzzatto
--
The Sefirot
The Sefirot are the Creators attributes. He devised
these measures or vessels for Himself in order to fulfill
--
THE Sefirot
131
--
The chief function of the Sefirot is the extension of
Divine Substance and Heavenly Light from the Creator,
--
both. Nonetheless, the Sefirot are not at all like the
created beings, but rather possess certain functions which
--
THE Sefirot
133
--
the Sefirot manifests amidst humans as speech, which
issues from the speaker to the listener.

2.05 - The Line of Light and The Impression, #General Principles of Kabbalah, #Rabbi Moses Luzzatto, #Kabbalah
the world and the Sefirot from the middle point. When
compared to what has been withdrawn, it is but a faint
--
The attri butes, or all the Sefirot and the vessels, are
those very things which were inherent in the Impression.
--
into the "small path it infuses the Sefirot with enough
of His exaltedness to empower them with the supervision

2.07 - Ten Internal and Ten External Sefirot, #General Principles of Kabbalah, #Rabbi Moses Luzzatto, #Kabbalah
object:2.07 - Ten Internal and Ten External Sefirot
author class:Rabbi Moses Luzzatto
--
Out of ten internal and ten external Sefirot, Adam
Kadmon was fashioned. This creation denotes the ex
--
TEN INTERNAL AND TEN EXTERNAL Sefirot
143

2.10 - The Primordial Kings Their Shattering, #General Principles of Kabbalah, #Rabbi Moses Luzzatto, #Kabbalah
up the Sefirot of the "other side, also known the husks.
Then, according to its latent predisposition, nature im

2.11 - The Shattering And Fall of The Primordial Kings, #General Principles of Kabbalah, #Rabbi Moses Luzzatto, #Kabbalah
With the descent of these Sefirot into Creation,
Formation, and Action, the effects of the break increased
--
Prior to the shattering the place of the Sefirotic
worlds was within the degree of Emanation, ranging
--
when those Sefirot lost their superior status and con
tinued to remain merely at the levels of Creation, Form
--
from the seven lower Sefirot of the world of Points, since
the first three, did not leave the world of Emendation.
--
turned to their original degrees. These seven Sefirot must
therefore be subdivided into ten in order to establish all
the Sefirot for BYA, including in them the necessary
160
--
of good and evil. The ten Sefirot of the world of Eman
ation itself were completed from these seven. And so,
developing ten Sefirot out of seven required two falls.
With the first fall, only the head of the world of
--
of BYA, the Sefirot or the created being.
In view of the place to which the vessels descended,
it was possible to establish ten Sefirot of Berta, Yetzira,
Assiah (BYA), and because they themselves were
--
tablished. There the seven Sefirot themselves were di
vided into all ten Sefirot. We find then that the world
of Emanation and those of BYA (which appared after

2.12 - The Position of The Sefirot, #General Principles of Kabbalah, #Rabbi Moses Luzzatto, #Kabbalah
object:2.12 - The Position of The Sefirot
author class:Rabbi Moses Luzzatto
--
In the latter case the Sefirot draw together in an attempt
to complete an incomplete form, incomplete because it
--
gathering of all the Sefirotic parts). For as long as they
remain separate entities, created beings will remain sub
--
At the outset the Creator issued the Sefirot only as
a series of successive stages, and not as a co-extensive as
--
arranged the Sefirot in the form of a co-existensive as
sembly. The whole of the emendation is dependent on
this latter arrangement, in equipoise. Here tine Sefirot
are like scale, united because they parallel each other, with

2.13 - Kingdom-The Seventh Sefira, #General Principles of Kabbalah, #Rabbi Moses Luzzatto, #Kabbalah
The six Sefirot of the Points were not united with
"Kingdom, so that no mention is made of a "wife ex

2.15 - Selection of Sparks Made for The Purpose of The Emendation, #General Principles of Kabbalah, #Rabbi Moses Luzzatto, #Kabbalah
From the very beginning then, all the Sefirot in the
world of the Points possessed the capacity to issue evil,

2.16 - Fashioning of The Vessel, #General Principles of Kabbalah, #Rabbi Moses Luzzatto, #Kabbalah
them. Still, the newly-devised Lights of the Sefirot are
nothing but the roots or sources of whatever is found
--
substance responsible for producing the rays in Sefirot
as well as fashioning the created beings that occupy the
--
this substance that issues along with the evolving Sefirot
and fashions the Lights. It is this substance which is later

2.19 - Union, Gestation, Birth, #General Principles of Kabbalah, #Rabbi Moses Luzzatto, #Kabbalah
with the Sefirot, denote varying aspects of the Lights
which the Creator caused to radiate within the created
--
The idea of "brain, namely, the last three Sefirot
"Triumph, "Glory and "Foundationof an "upper

2.20 - The Infancy and Maturity of ZO, Father and Mother, Israel The Ancient and Understanding, #General Principles of Kabbalah, #Rabbi Moses Luzzatto, #Kabbalah
We have already explained that the Sefirot are
none other than attributes of the Creator, and that
--
so the Sefirot are the source.
To pursue the point further, the Sefirot of ZO are
the attri butes of the Creators Judgments. They are the
--
that these Sefirot represent. However, we have already
explained that what must first be discerned in the
--
will examine all that pertains to ZO as Sefirot, Lights
and sources.
--
* TR. N. In the Primordial Kings the Sefirot of ZO were
arranged in a single pillarran/ ing one below the other, but the
--
in the state of the first corruption (when the Sefirot
of ZO were all issued in one pillar) final destruction
--
the Sefirot of ZO are in the process of being selected;
and, because they are not yet manifest outside of the
--
3) The seven lower Sefirot
"Crown, the collective Parezuf of Arik, is free from
--
Lastly, the seven lower Sefirot are the Lights from
which matter issues. They constitute the collective
--
matter, as well as its first three Sefirot, which constitute
the brain that reaches ZO from Father and Mother.
--
in the first three Sefirot. Thus, according to the system
of evolvement, wherein the Lights issue one from the
--
and it is this that constitutes the first three Sefirot.
188
--
possesses only the six Sefirot (dimensions), except during
periods of prayer, when its Light is temporarily in
--
result of the three Sefirot "Mercy, "Power and
"Beauty, which are revealed when the infant ZO is
--
derives from that which is above the six Sefirot of ZO
(namely, from the brain of Father and Mother"Wis
--
Sefirot (the brain) with the six following Sefirot (the
six dimensions) is differentiated into particular stages.
--
elements of the brain, are not. The Sefirot ''Wisdom
and "Intelligence are the paths by which the attri butes
--
lower Sefirot, as well as the three first Sefirot that
comprise his brain, may actually be discerned in him.

2.22 - The Feminine Polarity of ZO, #General Principles of Kabbalah, #Rabbi Moses Luzzatto, #Kabbalah
isting emendations in that all the nine Sefirot constitute
the collective bounty which the Creator bestows on the
world. These nine Sefirot effect all the divine occurrences
in the world. But the feminine polarity of ZO is the

2.23 - A Virtuous Woman is a Crown to Her Husband, #General Principles of Kabbalah, #Rabbi Moses Luzzatto, #Kabbalah
the nine Sefirot of 'Kingdom to the shells. The feminine
polarity ("Kingdom) has its source in the Sefirot of
"Knowledge, "Beauty and "Foundation (The middle
--
in ZO, whether it be that of the three lower Sefirot
"Triumph, "Glory and "Foundation, which designates

2.25 - Mercies and Judgements of Knowledge, #General Principles of Kabbalah, #Rabbi Moses Luzzatto, #Kabbalah
one-tenth of ZO, which is made up of nine Sefirot.
ZO represents the bestower and Nukbah is the recipient.

2.29 - The Worlds of Creation, Formation and Action, #General Principles of Kabbalah, #Rabbi Moses Luzzatto, #Kabbalah
are included all the Godly Sefirot of BYA ("Creation,
"Formation and "Action).
--
Holies (the first three Sefirot in the world of "Crea
tion) the Glory of complete perfection of the worlds

3.04 - LUNA, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[158] From all this it would seem that the moon-plant is a kind of mandrake and has nothing to do with the botanical Lunaria (honesty). In the herbal of Tabernaemontanus, in which all the magico-medicinal properties of plants are carefully listed, there is no mention of the alchemical Lunatica or Lunaria. On the other hand it is evident that the Lunatica is closely connected with the tree of the sea in Arabian alchemy207 and hence with the arbor philosophica,208 which in turn has parallels with the Cabalistic tree of the Sefiroth209 and with the tree of Christian mysticism210 and Hindu philosophy.211
[159] Rulands remark that the sponge has understanding (see n. 205) and Khunraths that the essence of the Lunaria is the sweetness of the sages point to the general idea that the moon has some secret connection with the human mind.212 The alchemists have a great deal to say about this, and this is the more interesting as we know that the moon is a favourite symbol for certain aspects of the unconsciousthough only, of course, in a man. In a woman the moon corresponds to consciousness and the sun to the unconscious. This is due to the contrasexual archetype in the unconscious: anima in a man, animus in a woman.

5.04 - THE POLARITY OF ADAM, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[592] It is evident that the speaker is the feminine personification of the prima materia in the nigredo state. Psychologically this dark figure is the unconscious anima. In this condition she corresponds to the nefesh of the Cabalists.193 She is desire; for as Knorr von Rosenroth trenchantly remarks: The mother is nothing but the inclination of the father for the lower.193a The blackness comes from Eves sin. Sulamith (the Shulamite)194 and Eve (Hawa, earth) are contaminated into a single figure, who contains in herself the first Adam, like the mother her child, and at the same time awaits the second Adam, i.e., Adam before the Fall, the perfect Original Man, as her lover and bridegroom. She hopes to be freed by him from her blackness. Here again we encounter the mysticism of the Song of Songs as in the Aurora consurgens I. Jewish gnosis (Cabala) combines with Christian mysticism: sponsus and sponsa are called on the one hand Tifereth and Malchuth and on the other Christ and the Church.195 The mysticism of the Song of Songs196 appeared in Jewish-Gnostic circles during the third and fourth centuries, as is proved by the fragments of a treatise called Shiur Koma (The Measure of the Body). It concerns a mysticism only superficially Judaicized by references to the description of the Beloved in the Song of Songs.197 The figure of Tifereth belongs to the Sefiroth system, which is conceived to be a tree. Tifereth occupies the middle position. Adam Kadmon is either the whole tree or is thought of as the mediator between the supreme authority, En Soph, and the Sefiroth.198 The black Shulamite in our text corresponds to Malchuth as a widow, who awaits union with Tifereth and hence the restoration of the original wholeness. Accordingly, Adam Kadmon here takes the place of Tifereth. He is mentioned in Philo and in the midrashic tradition. From the latter source comes the distinction between the heavenly and earthly Adam in I Cor. 15 : 47: The first man was of the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven, heavenly (DV), and verse 45: The first man, Adam, became a living soul; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit (DV). Thus the original hylicpsychic man is contrasted with the later pneumatic man.
[593] The Tractatus de Revolutionibus Animarum, of Knorr von Rosenroth, Part I, ch. 1, 10, contains a passage which is of importance for the psychological interpretation of Adam:

5.08 - ADAM AS TOTALITY, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[640] The lapis also figures in the Cabala: Sometimes Adonai, the name of the last Sefira, and Malchuth herself, the Kingdom, are so called; for the latter is the foundation of the whole fabric of the world.325 The stone is, indeed, of supreme importance, because it fulfils the function of Adam Kadmon as the capital-stone, from which all the upper and lower hosts in the work of creation are brought into being.326 It is called the sapphirestone, because it takes on divers colours from the highest powers, and works in created things now in one wise, now in the contrary, administering at times good, at others evil, now life, now death, now sickness, now healing, now poverty, now riches.327 The stone appears here as the power of fate; indeed, as the reference to Deuteronomy 32 : 39 shows, it is God himself.328 Knorr von Rosenroth was himself an alchemist, and his words here are written with deliberate intent.329 He emphasizes that the stone is the one which the builders rejected and is become the head of the corner.330 It occupies a middle position in the Sefiroth system since it unites in itself the powers of the upper world and distributes them to the lower.331 According to its position, therefore, it would correspond to Tifereth.332
[641] I have found no evidence in the alchemical literature that the sapphire was an arcanum before the time of Paracelsus. It seems as though this author introduced it into alchemy from the Cabala as a synonym for the arcane substance:
--
[652] With the statements of the Cabala, which as we have seen found their way into alchemy, our interpretation of Adam attains a scope and a depth that can hardly be surpassed. This interpretation includes Eve as the feminine principle itself. She appears chiefly as the lower, as Malchuth (kingdom), Shekinah (the Indwelling of God), or as Atarah (Crown), the equivalent below of Kether, the upper crown. She is also present in the hermaphroditic Sefiroth system, the right half of which is masculine and the left half feminine. Hence Adam Kadmon, as a personification of the whole inverted tree, is androgynous, but the system itself is a highly differentiated coniunctio symbol, and, as such, divided into three parts (three columns of three Sefiroth each). According to Hippolytus, the Naassenes divided the hermaphroditic Adam into three parts, just as they did Geryon.356 Geryon was triple-bodied357 and the possessor of the splendid cattle on the island of Erythia. Heracles slew him with an arrow, on which occasion Hera was wounded in the breast. On the same journey Heracles had threatened to shoot the sun because his rays were too hot. So the slaying of Geryon was the last in a series of three sacrileges.
For they say of this Geryon [continues Hippolytus] that one part is spiritual, one psychic, and one earthly; and they hold that the knowledge of him is the beginning of the capacity to know God, for they say: The beginning of wholeness is the knowledge of man, but the knowledge of God is perfect wholeness. All this, they say, the spiritual, the psychic, and the earthly, set itself in motion and came down together into one man, Jesus who was born of Mary; and there spoke through it [the spiritual, the psychic, and the earthly] these three men [i.e., the triple-bodied Geryon], each from his own substance to his own. For of all things there are three kinds, the angelic, the psychic, and the earthly; and three Churches, angelic, psychic, and earthly; and their names are the Chosen, the Called, and the Captive.358
[653] This conception bears a striking resemblance to the Sefiroth system.359 In particular, Geryon corresponds to the cosmogonic Adam Kadmon. He is the masculo-feminine Man in all things, [whom] the Greeks call the heavenly horn of the moon.360 For they say all things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made.361 That which was made in him is Life. This, they say, is Life the unutterable generation [
] of perfect men, which to earlier generations was unknown.362

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