THE CHALDEAN DOCTRINE – The Space Around The Upper Triangle:
“When the active period had arrived, En-Soph sent forth from within his own eternal essence, Sephira, the active Power, called the Primordial Point, and the Crown, Keter. It is only through her that the “Unbounded Wisdom” could give a concrete form to his abstract Thought. Two sides of the upper triangle, the right side and the base, are composed of unbroken lines; the third, the left side, is dotted. It is through the latter that emerges Sephira. Spreading in every direction, she finally encompasses the whole triangle. In this emanation of the female active principle from the left side of the mystic triangle, is foreshadowed the creation of Eve from Adam’s left rib. Adam is the Microcosm of the Macrocosm, and is created in the image of the Elohim. In the Tree of Life, the triple triad is disposed in such a manner that the three male Sephiroth are on the right, the three female on the left, and the four uniting principles in the centre. From the invisible Dew falling from the Higher “Head” Sephira creates primeval water, or chaos taking shape. It is the first step toward the solidification of Spirit, which through various modifications will produce earth. “It requires earth and water to make a living soul”, says Moses.
When Sephira emerges like an active power from within the latent Deity, she is female; when she assumes the office of a creator, she becomes a male; hence, she is androgyne. She is the “Father and Mother Aditi”, of the Hindu Cosmogony. After brooding over the “Deep”, the Spirit of God produces its own image in the water, the Universal Womb, symbolized in Manu by the Golden Egg. In the kabalistic Cosmogony, Heaven and Earth are personified by Adam Kadmon and the second Adam. The first Ineffable Triad, contained in the abstract idea of the “Three Heads”, was a “mystery name”. It was composed of En-Soph, Sephira, and Adam Kadmon, the Protogonos, the latter being identical with the former, when bisexual.
In every triad there is a male, a female, and an androgyne. Adam-Sephira is the Crown, (Keter). It sets itself to the work of creation, by first producing Chochmah, Male Wisdom, a masculine active potency, represented by Jah, or the Wheels of Creation, from which proceeds Binah, Intelligence, female and passive potency, which is Jehovah, whom we find in the Bible figuring as the Supreme. But this Jehovah is not the kabalistic Jodcheva. The binary is the fundamental cornerstone of Gnosis. As the binary is the Unity multiplying itself and self-creating, the kabalists show the “Unknown” passive En-Soph, as emanating from himself, Sephira, which, becoming visible light, is said to produce Adam Kadmon. But in the hidden sense, Sephira and Adam are one and the same light, only latent and active, invisible, and visible.
The second Adam, as the human tetragram, produces in his turn Eve, out of his side. It is the second triad, with which the kabalists have hitherto dealt, hardly hinting at the Supreme and Ineffable One, and never committing anything to writing. All knowledge concerning the latter was imparted orally. It is the second Adam, then, who is the unity represented by Jod, emblem of the kabalistic male principle, and at the same time, he is Chochmah, Wisdom, while Binah or Jehovah is Eve; the first Chochmah issuing from Keter, or the androgyne, Adam Kadmon, and the second Binah from Chochmah. If we combine with Jof the three letters which form the name of Eve, we will have the divine tetragram pronounced IEVO-HEVAH, Adam and Eve, Jehovah, male and female, or the idealization of humanity embodied in the first man.
Thus is it that we can prove that, while Jewish kabalists, in common with their initiated masters, the Chaldeans and the Hindus, adored the Supreme and Unknown God, in the sacred silence of their sanctuaries, the ignorant masses of every nation were left to adore something which was certainly less than the Eternal Substance of the Buddhists, the so-called Atheists.
As Brahma, the deity manifested in the mythical Manu, or the first man, (born of Swayambhuva, or the Self-existent), is finite, so Jehovah, embodied in Adam and Eve, is but a human god. He is the symbol of humanity, a mixture of good with a portion of unavoidable evil; of spirit fallen into matter. In worshipping Jehovah, we simply worship nature, as embodied in man, half-spiritual and half-material, at best: we are Pantheists, when not fetich worshippers, like the idolatrous Jews, who sacrificed on high places, in groves, to the personified male and female principle, ignorant of IAO, the Supreme “Secret Name” of the Mysteries. Shekinah is the Hindu Vâch, and praised in the same terms as the latter.
Though shown in the kabalistic Tree of Life as proceeding from the ninth Sephiroth, yet Shekinah is the “veil” of En-Soph, and the “garment” of Jehovah. The “veil”, for it succeeded for long ages in concealing the real Supreme God, the universal Spirit, and masking Jehovah, the exoteric deity, made the Christians accept him as the “father” of the initiated Jesus. Yet the kabalists, as well as the Hindu Dikshita, know the power of the Shekinah or Vâch, and call it the “secret wisdom”.
The triangle played a prominent part in the religious symbolism of every great nation; for everywhere it represented the three great principles – spirit, force, and matter; or the active, (male), passive, (female), and the dual or correlative principle which partakes of both and binds the two together. It was the Arba or mystic “four”, the mystery gods, the Kabeiri, summarized in the unity of one supreme Deity. It is found in the Egyptian pyramids, whose equal sides tower up until lost in one crowning point.
In the kabalistic diagram the central circle of the Brahmanical figure is replaced by the cross; the celestial, perpendicular; and the terrestrial, horizontal base line. But the idea is the same: Adam Kadmon is the type of humanity as a collective totality within the unity of the creative God and the universal spirit. “Of him who is formless, the non-existent, (also the eternal, but not First Cause), is born the heavenly man.” But after he created the form of the heavenly man, he “used it as a vehicle wherein to descend” says the Kabala. Thus, Adam Kadmon is the avatar of the concealed power. After that the heavenly Adam creates or engenders by the combined power of the Sephiroth, the earthly Adam. The work of creation is also begun by Sephira in the creation of the ten Sephiroth, (who are the Pradjapatis of the Kabala, for they are likewise the Lords of all beings). The Sohar asserts the same.
According to the kabalistic doctrine there were old worlds proceeded. “All things of which this world consists, spirit as well as body, will return to their principal, and the roots from which they proceeded”, (Sohar ii., 218 b). The kabalists also maintain the indestructibility of matter, albeit their doctrine is shrouded still more carefully than that of the Hindus. The creation is eternal, and the universe is the “garment”, or evolutionists, “the veil of God” – Shekinah; and the latter is immortal and eternal as Him within whom it has ever existed. Every world is made after the pattern of its predecessor, and each more gross and material than the preceding one. In the Kabala all were called sparks.
Finally, our present grossly materialistic world was formed. In the Chaldean account of the period which preceded the genesis of our world, Berosus speaks of a time when there existed nothing but darkness, and an abyss of waters, filled with hideous monsters, “produced of a two-fold principle. These were creatures in which were combined the limbs of every species of animals. In addition to these fishes, reptiles, serpents, with other monstrous animals, which assumed each other’s shape and countenance.”
H. P. Blavatsky
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 