LECTURE OF THE KABALISTS.
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Pike, Albert
Ans In the Divinity, it is the unit; in created things, the number 2: Because the Divinity, 1, engenders 2, and in created things 2 engenders 1.
Qu What is the most majestic number?
Ans 3, because it denotes the triple divine essence.
Qu What is the most mysterious number?
Ans 4, because it contains all the mysteries of nature.
Qu What is the most occult number?
Ans 5, because it is inclosed in the centre of the series.
Qu What is the most salutary number?
Ans 6, because it contains the source of our spiritual and corporeal happiness.
Qu What is the most fortunate number?
Ans 7, because it leads us to the decade, the perfect number.
Qu Which is the number most to be desired?
Ans 8, because he who possesses it, is of the number of the Elus and Sages.
Qu Which is the most sublime number?
Ans 9, because by it religion and nature are exalted.
Qu Which is the most perfect number?
Ans 10, because it includes unity, which created everything, and zero, symbol of matter and chaos, whence everything emerged. In its figures it comprehends the created and uncreated, the commencement and the end, power and force, life and annihilation. By the study of this number, we find the relations of all things; the power of the Creator, the faculties of the creature, the Alpha and Omega of divine knowledge.
Qu Which is the most multiplying number?
Ans 11, because with the possession of two units, we arrive at the multiplication of things.
Qu Which is the most solid number?
Ans 12, because it is the foundation of our spiritual and temporal happiness.
Qu Which is the favorite number of religion and nature?
Ans 4 times 10, because it enables us, rejecting everything impure, eternally to enjoy the number 6 times 12, term and summit of our felicity.
Qu What is the meaning of the square?
Ans It is the symbol of the four elements contained in the triangle, or the emblem of the three chemical principles: these things united form absolute unity in the primal matter.
Qu What is the meaning of the centre of the circumference?
Ans It signifies the universal spirit, vivifying centre of nature.
Qu What do you mean by the quadrature of the circle?
Ans The investigation of the quadrature of the circle indicates the knowledge of the four vulgar elements, which are themselves composed of elementary spirits or chief principles; as the circle, though round, is composed of lines, which escape the sight, and are seen only by the mind.
Qu What is the profoundest meaning of the figure 3?
Ans The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. From the action of these three results the triangle within the square; and from the seven angles, the decade or perfect number.
Qu Which is the most confused figure?
Ans Zero,—the emblem of chaos, formless mixture of the elements.
Qu What do the four devices of the Degree signify?
Ans That we are to hear, see, be silent, and enjoy our happiness.
The unit is the symbol of identity, equality, existence, conservation, and general harmony; the Central Fire, the Point within the Circle.
Two, or the duad, is the symbol of diversity, inequality, division, separation, and vicissitudes.
The figure 1 signifies the living man [a body standing upright]; man being the only living being possessed of this faculty. Adding to it a head, we have the letter P, the sign of Paternity, Creative Power; and with a further addition, R, signifying man in motion, going, Iens, Iturus.
The Duad is the origin of contrasts. It is the imperfect condition into which, according to the Pythagoreans, a being falls, when he detaches himself from the Monad, or God. Spiritual beings, emanating from God, are enveloped in the duad, and therefore receive only illusory impressions.
As formerly the number ONE designated harmony, order, or the Good Principle (the ONE and ONLY GOD, expressed in Latin by Solus, whence the words Sol, Soleil, symbol of this God), the number Two expressed the contrary idea. There commenced the fatal knowledge of good and evil. Everything double, false, opposed to the single and sole reality, was expressed by the Binary number. It expressed also that state of contrariety in which nature exists, where everything is double; night and day, light and darkness, cold and heat, wet and dry, health and sickness, error and truth, one and the other sex, etc. Hence the Romans dedicated the second month in the year to Pluto, the God of Hell, and the second day of that month to the manès of the dead.