Page 339 - The_secret_teachings_of_all_ages_Neat

The fifth order of gates is termed The Angelic World and its divisions are as follows: (41)
Ishim--Sons of Fire; (42) Orphanim--Cherubim; (43) Aralim--Thrones; (44)
Chashmalim--Dominions; (45) Seraphim--Virtues; (46) Melachim--Powers; (47) Elohim-
-Principalities; (48) Ben Elohim--Angels; (49) Cherubim--Archangels. [The order of the
Angels is a matter of controversy, the arrangement above differing from that accepted in
other sections of this volume. The Rabbins disagree fundamentally as to the proper
sequence of the Angelic names.]

The sixth order is termed The Archetype and consists of but one gate: (50) God, AIN
SOPH, He whom no mortal eye hath seen. The fiftieth gate leads from creation into the
Creative Principle and he who passes through it returns into the unlimited and
undifferentiated condition of ALL. The fifty gates reveal a certain evolutionary process
and it was declared by the Rabbins that he who would attain to the highest degree of
understanding must pass sequentially through all of these orders of life, each of which
constituted a gate in that the spirit, passing from the lower to the higher, found in each
more responsive organism new avenues of self-expression.

p. 121

The Tree of the Sephiroth

THE Tree of the Sephiroth may be considered an invaluable compendium of the secret
philosophy which originally was the spirit and soul of Chasidism. The Qabbalah is the
priceless heritage of Israel, but each year those who comprehend its true principles
become fewer in number. The Jew of today, if he lacks a realization of the profundity of
his people's doctrines, is usually permeated with that most dangerous form of ignorance,
modernism, and is prone to regard the Qabbalah either as an evil to be shunned like the
plague or as a ridiculous superstition which has survived the black magic of the Dark
Ages. Yet without the key which the Qabbalah supplies, the spiritual mysteries of both
the Old and the New Testament must remain unsolved by Jew and Gentile alike.

The Sephirothic Tree consists of ten globes of luminous splendor arranged in three
vertical columns and connected by 22 channels or paths. The ten globes are called the
Sephiroth and to them are assigned the numbers i to 10. The three columns are called
Mercy (on the right), Severity (on the left), and, between them, Mildness, as the
reconciling power. The columns may also be said to represent Wisdom, Strength, and
Beauty, which form the triune support of the universe, for it is written that the foundation
of all things is the Three. The 22 channels are the letters of the Hebrew alphabet and to
them are assigned the major trumps of the Tarot deck of symbolic cards.

Eliphas Levi declared that by arranging the Tarot cards according to a definite order man
could discover all that is knowable concerning his God, his universe, and himself. When
the ten numbers which pertain to the globes (Sephiroth) are combined with the 22 letters
relating to the channels, the resultant sum is 32--the number peculiar to the Qabbalistic
Paths of Wisdom. These Paths, occasionally referred to as the 32 teeth in the mouth of the
Vast Countenance or as the 32 nerves that branch out from the Divine Brain, are