The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 3 of 4: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and PhilosophyBlavatsky, H. P. (Helena Petrovna)
Religion
The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 3 of 4: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy
Blavatsky, H. P. (Helena Petrovna)
Theosophy
The transcendental methods of the _Kabalah_ must not be mentioned in a
public work; but its various systems of arithmetical and geometrical ways
of unriddling certain symbols may be described. The _Zohar_ methods of
calculation, with their three sections, the Gematria, Notaricon and
Temura, also the Albath and Algath, are extremely difficult to practise.
We refer those who would learn more to Cornelius Agrippa’s works.(178) But
none of those systems can ever be understood unless a Kabalist becomes a
real Master in his Science. The Symbolism of Pythagoras requires still
more arduous labour. His symbols are very numerous, and to comprehend even
the general gist of his abstruse doctrines from his Symbology would
necessitate years of study. His chief figures are the square (the
Tetraktys), the equilateral triangle, the point within a circle, the cube,
the triple triangle, and finally the forty‐seventh proposition of Euclid’s
Elements, of which proposition Pythagoras was the inventor. But with this
exception, none of the foregoing symbols originated with him, as some
believe. Millenniums before his day, they were well known in India, whence
the Samian Sage brought them, not as a speculation, but as a demonstrated
Science, says Porphyry, quoting from the Pythagorean Moderatus.
The numerals of Pythagoras were hieroglyphical symbols by means
whereof he explained _all_ ideas concerning the nature of
things.(179)
The fundamental geometrical figure of the _Kabalah_, as given in the _Book
of Numbers_,(180) that figure which tradition and the Esoteric Doctrines
tell us was given by the Deity Itself to Moses on Mount Sinai,(181)
contains the key to the universal problem in its grandiose, because
simple, combinations. This figure contains in itself all the others.
The Symbolism of numbers and their mathematical inter‐relations is also
one of the branches of Magic, especially of mental Magic, divination and
correct perception in clairvoyance. Systems differ, but the root idea is
everywhere the same. As shown in the _Royal Masonic Cyclopædia_, by
Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie:
One system adopts unity, another trinity, a third quinquinity;
again we have sexagons, heptagons, novems, and so on, until the
mind is lost in the survey of the materials alone of a science of
numbers.(182)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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