Page 338 - The_secret_teachings_of_all_ages_Neat

is the entire universe (the 43 spheres interpenetrating D 10), he is ignorant of its existence
because he cannot exercise control over that which is superior to or greater than himself.
Nevertheless, all these higher spheres exercise control over him, as his functions and
activities demonstrate. If they did not, he would be an inert mass of substance. Death is
merely the result of deflecting the life impulses of the higher rings away from the lower
body.

The control of the transubstantial rings over their own material reflection is called life,
and the spirit of man is, in reality, a name given to this great host of intelligences, which
are focused upon substance through a point called the ego, established in the midst of
themselves. X 1 is the outside boundary of the human Auric Egg, and the entire diagram
becomes a cross section of the constitution of man, or a cross section of the Kosmic
constitution, if correlated with the universe. By the secret culture of the Qabbalistic
School, man is taught how to climb the rings (unfold his consciousness) until at last he
returns to AIN SOPH. The process by which this is accomplished is called the Fifty Gates
of Light. Kircher, the Jesuit Qabbalist, declares that Moses passed through forty-nine of
the gates, but that Christ alone passed the fiftieth gate.

To the third edition of the Sepher Yetzirah translated from the Hebrew by Wm. Wynn
Westcott are appended the Fifty Gates of Intelligence emanating from Binah, the second
Sephira. The source of this information is Kircher's Œdipus Ægyptiacus. The gates are
divided into six orders, of which the first four have each ten subdivisions, the fifth nine,
and the sixth only one.

The first order of gates is termed Elementary and its divisions areas follows: (1) Chaos,
Hyle, the First Matter; (2) Formless, void, lifeless; (3) The Abyss; (4) Origin of the
Elements; (5) Earth (no seed germs); (6) Water;(7) Air;(8) Fire;(9) Differentiation of
qualities; (10) Mixture and combination.

The second order of gates is termed Decad of Evolution and its divisions areas follows:
(11) Minerals differentiate; (12) Vegetable principles appear; (13) Seeds germinate in
moisture; (14) Herbs and Trees; (15) Fructification in vegetable life; (16) Origin of low
forms of animal life; (17) Insects and Reptiles appear; (18) Fishes, vertebrate life in the
waters; (19) Birds, vertebrate life in the air; (20) Quadrupeds, vertebrate earth animals.

The third order of gates is termed Decad of Humanity and its divisions are as follows:
(21) Appearance of Man; (22) Material human body; (23) Human Soul conferred; (24)
Mystery of Adam and Eve; (25) Complete Man as the Microcosm; (26) Gift of five
human faces acting exteriorly; (27) Gift of five powers to the soul; (28) Adam Kadmon,
the Heavenly Man; (29) Angelic beings, (30) Man in the image of God.

The fourth order of gates is termed World of Spheres and its divisions are as follows: (31)
The Heaven of the Moon; (32) The Heaven of Mercury, (33) The Heaven of Venus; (34)
The Heaven of the Sun; (35) The Heaven of Mars; (36) The Heaven of Jupiter; (37) The
Heaven of Saturn; (38) The Firmament; (39) The Primum Mobile; (40) The Empyrean
Heaven.