Carlo Suarès : Cipher of Genesis : Part One : HA-QABALA



FREQUENTLY, OVER the centuries, the Qabala     has been lost and rediscovered. Its traces can be found in the period when, back from their captivity in Babylon, the Jews awoke to a new awareness of themselves, with Ezra, Nehemiah and others.

Looking backwards in time, we can see that the Qabala was alive with Mosheh (Moses); going back further, we find it with Abram; in still more remote ages, it disappears from the sight of enquirers, but not from the perception of those who have inherited that most ancient of ancient knowledge. All through history its transmission has been kept secret. The source of the original Qabala can, however, be grasped at any time, because it is timeless. The cabalists have always said that Abram possessed it.

Ab-Ram   -   the father of Ram, or according to the Semitic expression, he who possesses Ram) may have been an initiate of any country from Tibet to Egypt. In Tibet the name Ram expresses the universal essence, in the sense of basis of the world, and is also sometimes a symbol of all that radiates as the sun. Ram, in ancient Egypt, was also a symbol for the basis of the world, manifested in the pyramids (in Arabic pyramid is Ahram). One of the most important persons in the Egyptian initiatic order was Ram Nak Hotep.

The name Ram is also linked to the Celtic world where, for the Druids, it was the symbol of the universal essence. It was said that those who had pierced the secret of Ram could disregard all the unessentials, retaining only the essential.

n the English sense, "ram", the animal, is found as a symbol in the esoteric teaching of the Prajna-Patis (lords of the Being); it pierces through all that is not essential. Its motto is: "Let us be gods and laugh at ourselve".

According to the original Qabala   "Ram"     expresses thecosmic dwelling that is, the whole perceptible extant universe in its capacity for proliferation. And Avram, or Abram, is he who, having gone through the many layers of differentiation, receives the pulsation of life which transfigures that proliferation on a level with cosmic action. In simple words, the action of an Avram     his own house has a cosmic significance.

Abraham     was not a believer. He recognized the presence of life as an ally and made with it a covenant. That pact was twofold: it included (a) the Qabala that is, a direct penetration of knowledge through comprehension, examination, vision and writing, and (b) circumcisionon     on the eighth day       that is, direct penetration of vital energy, transmutation of animal sexuality for the benefit of a sensitivity of the entire nervous system awakened and alert.

A few pages will later be devoted to circumcision, one of the keys to the mystery of Israel. I say that there are two keys. One is for the body, the sensory apparatus, the psyche: the circumcision on the eighth day. The other is for the mind, the contained, the human and cosmic germ of life unconditioned, which can only "be" when it is indeterminate: the Qabala.

Abram possessed the Qabala as knowledge and as writing. It has been said that the document whereon was inscribed the number-code of that knowledge came from Mount Ararat       where the mythical Noah's Ark had come to rest after the Deluge. Ararat     according to an ancient tradition, is the cabalistic name for a new cycle which comes into being after a long period during which the human germ has not been able to develop. Ararat means that two worlds, the timeless and the measurable (the inner and the outer) were again ready to make a fresh start. They were close together but not in any way related because the earlier human bodies still belonged to the primitive female.

Noah's consciousness, absorbed by the wine which the female earth had engendered, had sunk to a low level. The human germ in evolution had been transferred to Shem     the eponymic ancestor of the Semites. We must here pass over Shems ten symbolic generations and come to old Terahh     Abrams father. Their marvelous story will be told in its proper place, but we wish now to mention the place of Abrams birth: Aur Kasdeem
      translated Ur of the Chaldees. Symbolically, according to the Qabala, it means: the light of the magicians. Aur in Hebrew means light, and the Kasdeemsare the magicians, astrologers, diviners, who exercised great influence in those times.

The cabalists have always had a horror of the magic of the Kasdeems. Abram is the beginning of yet another era. With him, religion begins to free itself from the light of the magicians and to direct itself towards the perception of the inner light of
YHWH     In Abram's hand is a marvelous document: the testament of a lost civilization brought in the ark.

A few survivors had been able to preserve, in a series of ideograms, all that men had ever known, all that men will ever know, concerning the vocation of mankind in the presence of the impenetrable mystery of being.

Of these survivors, Genesis says (6:4) that the sons of Elohim came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them. In the time of Shem, they had disappeared from memory, but they had bequeathed their knowledge orally and had entrusted their precious document to safe hands.

According to the esoteric tradition, Abram was the first really to understand the deep significance of their message. The human seed had to disentangle itself from the magic of the Kasdeem     where it was being held in bondage, and had to be thrust into the world of conflict, of uncertainty, of hope and utter despair, of wild joy and anguish, of obstinate reconstructions and impending disasters. Any refuge, any protecting shelter had to be denied to it because, were it ever to remain immobile in any peaceful surrounding, it would become static in an immature, pre-human sub-species.

That land of strife and joys and pain is called, symbolically, Canaan   ,   Abram was sent into that land to take root and to conquer.

The biblical narrative, from there on, is a vast epic poem where all the themes of the myth reappear in a common adventure through such names as Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob, Leah, Rachel, Esau, etc

The subject of that epic poem is the description of the implanting of the human seed in the symbolical Canaan, or, on another level, it shows how duality is conquered by the threefold movement of life, in humanity-to-be.

Abram     becomes Abraham   and he transmits the Qabala to his son Issac     Isaac. Isaac gives it eventually to Jacob     and Jacob, disappointed by most of his sons, chooses as the heir to that knowledge his eleventh son, Yosseph (Joseph).   . The way in which he makes his choice is to send him in to an ambush planned by Yosseph's brothers with the purpose of killing him.

The attempted murder of the elected one is in the purest Yahwic style. In the beginning of the myth, YHWH     had become incarnate in his son Cain   and the simple presence of the timeless and indeterminate Cain had been enough to burst the bag of blood called Abel   .

Of course, Cain had not killed him: Abel had fallen into the non- entity of his own conditioning, and the earth had drunk his blood. Abel cannot be reproached for being dull as are all the people who work and sweat and merely exist in their mediocrity. In him, the seed of humanity-to-be could not live,

Aware of this result, YHWH     became cautious and decided to submit to a test the people he planned to utilize: he would try to kill them. If they resisted, they would be strong enough to carry the seed. Thus he commanded Abraham to kill Isaac. Elohim     assaulted Jacob and wrestled with him a whole night. He deceived Moses so as to attack him unawares. (Exod. 10:1-27) YHWH says to Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh for I have hardened his heart.. (Logically he would have helped Moses had he softened Pharaohs heart.) YHWH hardened Pharaohs heart and he would not let them (the Hebrews) go. (Exod. 4:19 and 24) And YHWH said unto Moses in Midian, Go, return into Egypt, for all the men are dead which sought thy life ... and when Moses is thus lulled, YHWH attempts to kill him.

In this passage (as well as in those that follow) we can see an example of the "personalization process" which inevitably occurs when these texts are read without a previous knowledge of the code which relates to their symbols. According to this manner of thinking it is, to be sure, quite evident that the cosmic vocation of Man -- Adami -- s to permit the two lives that make up his own double life to fecundate one another, mutually. He will thus become a new being and the actualization of the immanence, YHWH will take place within him.

And it is of such manifestation, with its ensuing transformations, that the cabalists speak when they seem to attribute speech and action to the YHWH     immanence, whose acts and words are to be found, for them, on a purely symbolic level. Further, many characters referred to in these stories (Cain, Abel, Lemekh, Noah) are mythical archetypes and should not, in any circumstances, be considered as being historical persons

But let us return to Joseph, sold by his brothers. That episode is a distorted description of an initiated ceremony. Some of its elements are significant: Joseph was in a state of half dream: he was stripped of his coat, his coat of many colours that was on him (Gen. 37:23-28). This is a wrong translation. His robe was the robe of spoliation (or dispossession); he was cast into a pit: and the pit was empty, there was no water in it. And Yehoudah     (Judah) suggested, let us sell him, and he was sold for 20 pieces of silver     .  

All these symbols are clear to those who know the Qabala.

The mythical Joseph   .   is a dual entity. Being the eleventh son, he is both 10, which is the number of Yod   . and 1, the Aleph     The Aleph     allowed him to understand dreams, and the Yod gave him the capacity to purchase all the wheat of Egypt

In very truth, Josephs action was the very action of the myth. He was a man of the Qabala when he came to Egypt. He was a conjunction of two processes: myth and history. He was that which a few initiates in the Qabala happen to be from time to time: the historical consciousness of the myth's biological necessity. A necessity which, more often than not, has appeared under the aspect of some devastating punishment inflicted by YHWH   .

Joseph brought upon his people a substantial blessing, which was immediately followed by a threat of wholesale destruction, by utter misery, by a most difficult escape, and by endless hardships. He was ambivalent. The myth is male, the earthly possessions are female.

Joseph kneaded and molded the primitive, formless substance of the human masses. He crushed them powerfully so a s to compel them to react vitally.

Before his time, human Genesis was (mythically) concentrated in a family. With him was born a people, a nation.

This is how YHWH   .   operated: there was a famine in Mitzrayim   . .   (Egypt) and in all adjoining countries. This Joseph had foreseen and he purchased for Pharaoh every grain of wheat available in the whole of Egypt. He then agreed to distribute it, but only at the price of dispossession. Thus, as a result of the operation, Pharaoh was the possessor of every acre in Egypt, and the whole people were reduced to slavery.

In the meanwhile, Joseph had asked all his family to come, and had settled them on the best land of the country so that they might multiply exceedingly.

Throughout there are two incidents which reveal to the cabalist that Joseph inherited the Qabala. In Genesis 47:29, we learn that when Joseph's father, Jacob, whose real name is Israel, was about to die, he said to Joseph, Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly with me. We remember (Gen. 32:25) that after having wrestled with Jacob all night, Elohim     prevailed not against him, and wounded him in the hollow of his thigh.

The fact of asking Joseph to touch that consecrated wound has a very profound, symbolic meaning. An ever present mythical idea is that "he who heals must be wounded" "he who is life must have gone through death." Israel, in this episode, transfers his power to Joseph by revealing himself to him.

Another verse is Genesis 48:22, in which Israel says to Joseph: Moreover, I have given to thee one portion above thy brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorites with my sword and with my bow.

The Amorites     the sword     and the bow     are very hard indeed to interpret! Israel never held a sword or a bow in his hands, and never fought anyone except Elohim This is a somewhat amusing case of mistranslation, due to the rational logic of translators who, in their ignorance, could not allow themselves to believe that Israel was mentioning the hand that had talked to him.

The root Amer     or Homer, which is used in the originaltext, is a reference to speech and has become "an Amorite". A hand     that speaks is a hand that writes. The object bequeathed, about which the exegesis knows nothing, is well-known esoterically. It is none other than the secret document, the trace of which is seen here.

Joseph lived a life of pomp and power. He died and was embalmed after the manner of the great of this world.

After his death, the Egyptian priests sought to find the magic object -- or document -- which Israel had given to his son, but they failed to do so. It had disappeared, and nobody knew where it was. Thus, many years passed by.

Then came a time when (Exod. 1:8-14) there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. Because of the tremendous power which the throne and the hierarchy had received from Joseph, the people were more and more miserable. But also because of Joseph, the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly. The more they were afflicted, the more they multiplied and grew. They became numerous and more powerful than the Egyptians. The harder their lives, the more bitter with bondage they became, the stronger they grew. Pharaoh decided to exterminate them. He ordered the Hebrew midwives to kill the newborn sons. he harder their lives, the more bitter with bondage they became, the stronger they grew. Pharaoh decided to exterminate them. He ordered the Hebrew midwives to kill the newborn sons. They disobeyed in full agreement with Elohim
 ; the babies were saved; and now we come to the story of Moses, and we shall rediscover the lost Qabala in an unexpected place.

The story of Moses -- we prefer to use his real name Mosheh -- is in the beginning, similar to many other legends of newborn children threatened, hidden, found, saved and led towards an exalted mission.

Much has been written on Mosheh, from different points of view, but it seems to me that only the Qabala can see him in his double reality, which is both mythical and historical.

The mythical reality is the evolution throughout the ages of the relationship between human consciousness and the unfathomable mystery of existence, resulting from the laws of Moses.

We have already stated that in the perception of the fact that existence is a total mystery lies the foundation of any true religious awareness. The mystery, the realization that the fact of existence cannot be explained in words or in any other way, has always been deeply alive in the minds of the men of the Qabala.

This does not mean that their writings correspond adequately to the needs of our time.

If they said in symbols what can be set forth today clearly in words, it is because it was thus that they understood and felt. But when we want to understand and feel, we must break through those images and expressions which served them, but which no longer serve. We do not see Abraham or Mosheh as did the ancient cabalists. We see them with our own eyes and judgment. We can and must see them directly. We can penetrate their legendary existences, and so discern that they were not what they are said to have been. We can do this because the historical process functions on a certain sensorial level, whereas the mythical process concerns the psyche, and, whether yesterday or today, the Qabala is always in touch, through the psyche with the great unknown.

At certain particularly important conjunctions of this double process, the Hebrew myth becomes apparent and thrusts itself upon the objective world where it acts as a typhoon whose whirling motion draws waters from the ocean and carries them along with its own movement. The mass of waters thus captured belongs more to the cyclone than to the ocean.

Such events as those which are named Abraham, Mosheh or Jesus are thus taken over by the myth and belong to it more than they do to objective reality. Their immense importance is due to the fact that they are a conjunction of two realities. Finally, they modify the course of history in so far as they become religious phenomena.

Certain Asiatic myths carry through centuries the continuity of their religious and social structures. They can be compared to very old trees of knowledge whose fruits have dried on their branches for lack of any renewed sap. Contrarily, the Qabala has died and has resurrected many, many times amidst spectacular displays, on each occasion accomplishing and then burying its past.

If, by chance, we happen today to be in such a time, we are the very conjunction, the very timeless spark, which at one time appeared as Abraham, at another time as Mosheh, and later as Jesus. That pinpoint of recurrent eternity is the Qabala.

With Mosheh springing out of the waters, a new birth on an entirely different level takes place, both identical and opposite to that which had been prepared by YHWH     through Joseph.

We are compelled here, although not without some reluctance, to recall a terminology rather well-known to the Qabala and to say that with Mosheh the narrative of the Emanation is now over and opens into the Creation, then into the Formation and the Action of Israel.

We said that the epoch of single men who carried the seed of human perfection has given place, with Joseph, to an epoch where that seed had to be buried in very primitive people. The tribes were 70 persons on their arrival in Egypt. But 430 years had elapsed and at the time of the Exodus, they were, according to the texts, 600,000 men, not including the children and without mentioning the women.

The problem was how to preserve the Elohimic seed, buried deep in a primitive, coarse, brutal human substance, hopelessly incapable of deconditioning itself.

The Qabala     uses the word Sephiroth     to express or describe different structures of the one cosmic energy, the Ayn-SophTheir formulation, in the time of Mosheh, was beyond the understanding of the unevolved masses. The creative energy was bound to be deeply involved and immersed in blood.

The Sephiroth or cosmic energies, which had operated in emanation through the myth, from Adam up to Abraham and his family, degenerated into other Sephiroth    . Intelligence     became   Rigour     and Wisdom     became Clemency     according to the Qabala.

The book of Mosheh, in fact, opens on those two key notes. This book is the book of a Creation. It is the creation of a container, of a living garment of protection for the seed of humanity- to-be, capable of not only sheltering it but also of living in symbiosis with it, of being in atonement with it, until the time of the necessary ripening and ultimate destruction of the shell.

Because the times are ripe today, the entire process of birth, growth, maturity, old age and death of the myth appears to us very clearly.

The two Sephiroth Rigour     and Clemency   accompany the action of Mosheh-Aaron. The two keys to the mystery of Israel, circumcision and the knowledge of the Name, are given to Mosheh. It is a new departure and the beginning of a very long story, which lies outside the scope of the present essay. We must, however, include this story and the new expression of the Qabala as we give it in the general field of the occult tradition.

We will, therefore, give a short account of the legend of Mosheh as seen from the angle of this Qabala.

Mosheh     is spelled Mem-Sheen-Hay The Mem     stands for water (as originator of existence), the Sheen     symbolizes the Cosmic breath, and Hay     means life. During a given lifetime, when the immense Exodus was being prepared, we can well imagine what such a revolt and such a devastating decision must have meant for the people. They had to be stirred and literally doped by miraculous messages, predictions, and promises. They had to believe in something tremendous. A vigorous and active deity was needed: the need was fulfilled.

The myth, like a cyclone, fell upon them with such intensity that with the help of their heated imaginations, tremendous happenings were supposed to take place, such as the ten plagues of Egypt, when one half of any one of them would have been enough to destroy the whole country.

The most interesting part of it is the quarrel between YHWH and Pharaoh, each threatening to kill the others firstborn [Here and in the following pages, we make use of the language of the Bible, which, as has already been said, personalizes YHWH, in order to render the term intelligible]. When YHWH thus threatens Pharaoh, he sets about, without wasting a minute, to try to kill his own son. (Exod. 4:22-24) says YHWH to Mosheh: And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, thus saith YHWH, Israel is my son, my firstborn. And I say unto thee, let my son go that he may serve me, and if thou refuse to let him go, I will slay thy son, thy firstborn. And it came to pass in a place where he spent the night that YHWH met him (Mosheh) and sought to kill him.

The conflict is intensified. Pharaoh oppresses the people more and more. YHWH sends all his plagues and as Pharaoh does not yield, comes to a last dramatic decision: all the newborn of Egypt are to be slaughtered,

The dispute between YHWH and the Earth (or the earthly powers) as to whose son is the firstborn and what is to became of him is recurrent in the Bible, and -- according to the Qabala -- is of vital importance for every one of us. We shall deal with it at some length in subsequent chapters.

Another subject of dispute is blood. This symbol has a wide range of connotations. The first plague inflicted by YHWH upon Egypt is the changing of all the water into blood. The Egyptian magicians can do it, too. Eventually Jesus will change water into wine. Blood and wine are interchangeable symbols. From Jesu wounds it is said that the blood was mixed with water.

The night before the Exodus, the Hebrews stained their doors with blood so as to be recognized by the slaughterers and spared.

Another important symbol in Mosheh's story is the transfiguration of womanhood. We shall follow this essential theme all through Genesis and as far as the Gospels. It is always through woman that every step from Emanation to Creation to Formation and to Action is achieved. In Moshehs narrative, two midwives, in agreement with Elohim
 ; save YHWH's     firstborn. Mosheh    is saved a second time by two women, one of them being his sister. (The symbol "sister" will be explained at length in connection with Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel.)

One of the first episodes concerning Mosheh is when he sees an Egyptian and a Hebrew fighting. He kills the Egyptian (Harshness). He is very much afraid lest he be discovered and punished. He digs a hole in the sand and buries the body. Then he meets two Hebrews fighting and wants to intervene as he has done previously. They ask him, "Do you wish to kill us as you killed the Egyptian?" Mosheh thus realizing that his deed is known, decides to flee and save himself (Clemency).

Mosheh is therefore compelled to go to Midian     towards his destiny. The "Cohen"     (priest) of Midian has 7 symbolic daughters. Mosheh meets them at a well and delivers them out of the hands of some shepherds. The daughters go to their father, whose name is Reuel     (Exod. 2:20), and he said unto his daughters, And where is he? Why is it that you have left the man? Call him that he may eat bread.

Mosheh eventually marries one of the 7 sisters. Her name is Zifforah    ,

Now begins chapter thus: Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law. Very few readers observe that the man whose name was Reuel     is now named Jethro    . But the Qabala knows why this is so and how it happened.

When Israel  .   died, his sons took his body and carried it all the way to Mamre  .   to bury it. With them they carried the precious Qabala to save it from the Egyptians, and gave it in trust in Midian     to some descendants of Abraham.

The mythical Reuel is clearly said to be (according to his name) Elohim's shepherd. Informed by his symbolic 7 daughters about the man who "delivered" them, he understands that, after so many years of waiting, he that was to be the inheritor of the Qabala has at last come.

The name Zifforah    , is again a symbol. She could be the princess Aurora of a fairy tale. Her name is the call of morning, a rising, a departure.

Reuel, having transmitted his powers to Mosheh, becomes somebody else: a sheer existence deeply immersed in its resistance to life-death. He falls, so to speak, into a coarser layer of vibrations, following the sephirotic process of incarnation. His part, as we shall soon see, will prevail in the creation of a tribal deity. So he is no longer Reuel     he now is Jethro    .

Mosheh     is aware of his future mission. He will serve YHWH     but so far he has not a direct revelation of what YHWH     is. He is a stranger to that name, so he calls his son Gershon, which means stranger.

One day he goes with Jethro's flocks beyond the lands he usually treads. He goes into the enchanted regions of Elohim's desolate life, into the deep dwellings of existence. That region has a name: Horeb     From its terrible dryness, a spark of light flashes suddenly, an "angel," and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. (Exod. 3:2)

YHWH sees that Mosheh turns round to see this great light, and to wonder why this bush is not burnt. Then comes the revelation.

Mosheh's mission is now fully revealed to him, but he still does not know whose voice it is that speaks to him. (Exod. 3:13) When I come unto the children of Israel... and they shall say to me, what is his name? what shall I say unto them? And here come the prodigious revelation, the splendid, the dazzling truth:   "Aleph-Hay-Yod-Hay     Aleph-Sheen-Raysh     Aleph-Hay-Yod-Hay   "   Ehieh Esher Ehieh.


All the translations of these ideograms, even in the Hebrew language, are abominable desecrations. A man skilled in the Qabala needs but to contemplate those few signs to be aware of it. If he truly is of the Qabala, the universe invades him with all that lives and all that dies, and that which exists, and that which does not exist, and that which has ever existed, and that which will be, and that which never was; though time and space are there, they dissolve into timelessness; for therein lies the prodigious mystery of all that is determined by indetermination. The sanctification is there, and a man dies to himself for being so much alive

It is thus said: Go and say: Aleph-Hay-Yod-Hay     has sent me to you. Yes. You will say Yod-Hay-Vav-Hay     has sent me to you. Yes. Aleph-Hay-Yod-Hay    . Yes. Yod-Hay-Vav-Hay   .  A Yod     for an Aleph   . A Hay     for a Hay    . A Vav     for a Yod    . A Hay     for a Hay   .  

And that is the Qabala. It is easy to understand it when one knows the game, the game that the Aleph-life-death-life-death and the Yod-existence must play continuously; the Aleph , discontinuous pulsation, at times immanent, at times activated, and Yod     permanent and continuous: Yod     the perpetual loser in spite of the psyche that does not want to die. All this is easy to understand when one knows that all life is two lives and that Adam is Aleph   , inside the blood

Such is the revelation granted to Mosheh of one of the two mysteries of Israel: the Qabala. The other mystery is the circumcision. It will be granted, as we all know, by
Zifforah    , when she will save Mosheh from YHWHs aggression (Exod. 4:25-26): Then Zifforah took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me. So he let him go: then she said, a bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision.

If we imagine YHWH as a tramp or a brigand at large, and fail to understand the truth underlying those symbols, this episode appears to be insane. When we know the inner, vital necessity of the myth, YHWH    , Zipporah    , and Mosheh     himself are only personifications of symbols.

The objective historical fact is that from that time on, a covenant has been established between YHWH and Israel in its flesh and life evolving towards a higher state of humanity. The movement of that life is integrated in the bodies of flesh, whether the Jews yield to it or not.

Many tentative explanations have been given of how the Hebrews crossed the Red Sea, of how Mosheh struck water out of a dry rock in Horeb, of the two columns of fire and cloud which rested on the tabernacle. Different meteorological phenomena are supposed to have happened while Mosheh was on a mountain top. Many speeches, laws, regulations, are supposed to have been delivered to the people by a so called deity.

Many tentative explanations have been given of how the Hebrews crossed the Red Sea, of how Mosheh struck water out of a dry rock in Horeb, of the two columns of fire and cloud which rested on the tabernacle. Different meteorological phenomena are supposed to have happened while Mosheh was on a mountain top. Many speeches, laws, regulations, are supposed to have been delivered to the people by a so called deity. We will not attempt a description of the historical facts; they are so superbly invented and overemphasized in the Bible that the whole narrative cannot be taken literally. It is, anyhow, irrelevant. Qabala can see through them

According to the biblical tale, six hundred thousand armed men, with their wives, their children and their herds, lived forty years in a desert.

When, without any apparent reason, the deity orders a punitive expedition against the Midianites, the booty which is brought back amounts to 675,000 sheep, 720,000 oxen, 61,000 donkeys and 32,000 virgins (mentioned at the end of the enumeration).

So, approximately two million people and an equivalent number of animals are supposed to have spent forty years in a desert, moving their camp more than forty times (Num. 33).

Moreover, the deity requires extraordinary offerings (Exod. 25) of gold and silver and brass, and blue, and purple and scarlet, and fine linen, and goat's hair and ram's skins dyed red, and badger's skins, and shittim wood, oil for the light, spices for anointing oil, and for sweet incense, onyx stones and stones to be set in blue ephod, and in blue breastplate ... And the people must build a sanctuary with a tabernacle, and instruments, and an ark, and staves, and a mercy seat, and cherubims of gold, and a table of shittim wood overlaid with gold, and dishes, and spoons, and a candlestick, and extremely elaborate curtains, and holy garments for Aaron ... The description of that which has to be built, wrought, inlaid and set by craftsmen of every kind, requiring every known material of that epoch, is very far indeed from the possibilities open to a huge population living in a desert -- and living on manna falling from the skies!

Let us now consider the most human of all the laws which are given to those people (Exod. 20:13): Thou shalt not kill, so many times quoted by so many killers.

It must be observed that the very deity that promulgates that law considers itself as being outside its own jurisdiction. When it intervenes in the history of the Hebrews, it is usually to order wholesale destruction; and Mosheh himself, the giver of the law, negates it whilst giving it.

(Exod. 32:27-28) When Moses sees that because he has "delayed to come down out of the mount," the people and Aaron have fashioned a "molten calf" to worship, he becomes enraged, and he gives this order to the sons of Levi: Thus says YHWH, the Eloh of Israel, Put every man the sword by his side and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour.

On that day about three thousand men were killed.

It is well to remember that at the time the death penalty was inflicted for many breaches of the law which we now consider as being only minor offences. The priests had to slaughter animals every day, and the altar must have been a disgusting sight. The people were driven to a state little short of obsession by innumerable petty regulations to be rigorously observed every day, every hour, in every circumstance of life, and threatening fantastic punishments.

By what strange contrivance of the people, for what unconscious necessity, through what hypnotic influence, is this narrative to be taken at its face value and included in a "Holy" Bible?

The answer is in Exodus 25:21-22 ... in the ark, says YHWH to Mosheh, thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee. And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee ...

The Qabala knows that that testimony was itself, the Qabala. Every possible precaution was taken by Mosheh to protect it, physically and morally, with the extreme rigour of intricate laws. He kept the people held in a magical net of authority. No armour could be too strong for the precious Revelation which was deposited in the ark. The way it came to be created can be seen in Exodus 17:8-16, where a mysterious Amalek fights with Israel and where Mosheh tells a mysterious Yehoushea (Joshua) to go and fight Amalek.

No explanation is given of who that Amalek might be and no exegesis, except the Qabala, has ever explained YHWH's and Moshes very peculiar behaviour in the circumstance: And YHWH said to Mosheh, write this for a memorial in a book and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under Shamaim (heaven). And Mosheh built an altar, and called the name of it YHWH-nissi: For he said, Because YHWH hath sworn that YHWH will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.

It is strange indeed to build an altar in remembrance of something that has to be utterly forgotten. And YHWH does not fight Amalek in order to gain victory: he established against him a state of perpetual warfare rom generation to generation Who, or what, is Amalek?

Then in Exodus 18, appears Jethro. He comes to Mosheh with his daughter Zifforah and her two sons. And Mosheh went out to meet his father-in-law and did obeisance. Later on, Jethro took an offering for Elohimand all the elders of Israel ate bread with him. Finally, Jethro criticizes Mosheh and instructs him as to what he has to do. The Yahwic immanence will disappear, and the evolutionary process of Elohim     will be set in motion.

Those episodes, as is always the case when something essential is said in the Bible, are not and cannot be understood by the synagogues or the churches. They have a threefold meaning (on three different levels), they describe the transformation of energy that we have mentioned above in using the term Sephiroth   .  

Only a careful study of the letter-numbers used in this narrative can give an adequate understanding of the (enacted) drama. We shall describe it briefly.

It begins with the fight between the children of Israel and Amalek: Aam-Lekh on a certain level, means "that which is thine." It is an emanation of YHWH. According to YHWH's custom, it is a test intended to discover the power or resistance of Mosheh.

Were he, Amalekan individual, he would be killed and done for, but YHWH wages an eternal battle against him. Nothing is so everlasting. YHWH is battling against a "himself" personified by Amalek.

Mosheh, in this contest, needs help. And two "principles" are within him, personified by Ahron     (Aaron) and Hur   .  Mosheh fights thus: When Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed; and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed (Exod. 17:11-12). But Moshehs hands were heavy: and they (Aaron and Hur) took a stone and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side.

Thus Joshua vanquished Amalek and his people.

Mosheh then builds an altar to YHWH. We cannot, here, use any of the translations of this episode. We can only attempt to give one in accordance with the Qabala. What he says is approximately this: "YHWH has performed for me a miracle, but if the hand goes against Yod-Hay what is the salt of it for me; but with that which is thine, I will be in the existence of two worlds."

These two worlds are Emanation and Creation. It is a certainty, according to the Qabala, that at that moment Mosheh was exactly at the junction of two worlds in apparent opposition. He realized that YHWH was staging a conflict within one single energy. The two worlds in conflict were only one world. So Mosheh could no longer fight, because whichever side he fought against was still YHWH. So he suddenly became quite still.

Now Jethro came to him. The text insists in saying that he is the Cohen of Midian       the Hhoten of Mosheh      . Whenever one finds so great an emphasis, its purpose is always to attract our attention. There is something to understand which is beyond the apparent meaning of Jethro being Mosheh's father-in-law. The theme Hhoten expresses, according to its ideograms, is a state of expectancy of the primitive, undifferentiated substance. The transformation of Reuel     to Jethro    . expresses the response of that substance to the action of YHWH upon it. The final Noun     in Cohen     Midian       and Hhoten     opens   the way to possibility. Likewise, Joshua will be called "son of Noun"     . 

It is said, in the translations, that Zifforah     who comes with her father, had been sent back by Mosheh. This is an erroneous interpretation of the text. Even in colloquial Hebrew, the word used is Shiloheya     which here means that Zifforah is liberated. Her second sons name is Elyezer   Elohim     helps.

Jethro explains to Mosheh the point of view of the gross human substance which Elohim's process is going to mould so that it can evolve. Mosheh, who only knows YHWH's side of the question, yields entirely to his advice

We will close this chapter with a reference to Exodus 24:9-11: Then went up Mosheh, and Ahron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. We see here four principles -- or archetypes: (a) Mosheh     the cosmic breath saved from the waters; (b) Ahron
    the pulsation life-death of Aleph   alive in its dwelling and acting in the game in which indetermination is at stake; (c) Nadab     the continuity of existence (and of the Qabala); and (d) Abihu     the living germ of Elohim     within that container.

Those four pseudo-persons saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone and as it were the body of heaven in its clearness. And upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: also they saw God, and did eat and drink.

This is really too crude. A God with feet, therefore a God in a body, is an idol. This passage is an exceedingly ignorant transcription of cabalistic symbols. The sapphire stone is the Sepher, the Book. That which is seen and acknowledged is the Qabala.

Mosheh, after this communion, does not climb a physical mountain. He ascends, so to speak in two cosmic lives, in the two lives of Yod-Hay-Vav-Hay   ,

Mosheh did not cross the Jordan, but the people did, ruled by Joshua, who had become the high priest of their national God.

They invaded the land of Canaan. With that expedition, the real history of the Jews begins a history of violence, wars, destruction and massacres

Their God never ceased to tell them, through the mouth of Joshua, that it was He who had fought for them, He who had exterminated defenceless populations. Had He not stopped the motion of the sun and thrown stones from His heaven so as the better to annihilate the victims of that invasion?

After Joshuas death, YHWH armed the sons of Judah. They attacked Jerusalem, killed its inhabitants, set fire to the town, and began to worship the Baals and the Astartes. YHWH became enraged because of this idolatry. He delivered the sons of Israel into the hands of plunderers and of all their enemies. He deprived them of every means of resistance, he drove them to a state of extreme distress and misery, and he sent Judges to rule over them.

YHWHwas with the Judges and protected Israel during their lifetime, because of his compassion for the people. But at the death of each Judge, the sons of Israel became even more corrupt than their fathers had been and incurred the wrath of YHWH.

YHWH, between the extreme Harshness and Clemency, sometimes delivered the people to their enemies, sometimes allowed them to intermingle peacefully with other nations. The result was the same: the sons of Israel always relapsed into idolatry.

The traditional Qabala acknowledges the Judges. Their wisdom was of the Qabala. They were known as Shofitim   . They acted upon the sons of Israel as a pair of bellows does on a fire which burns but feebly. They projected upon their primitive coarse substance the organic breath of cosmic life. Without this action of the Judges, the Qabala would have been lost.

But everything deteriorates eventually. The last Judges, sons of Samuel, walked not in his ways, hut turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment (1 Sam. 8:3-7).

Then all the elders . . . came to Samuel. . . and said. . . now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. But the thing displeased Samuel. . . and he prayed. . . and YHWH said: Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee; for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.

In spite of Samuels strong warnings, the sons of Israel organized themselves into a political state, "like all the nations" and henceforth the name of Israel lost its meaning.

The entire reign of their first king, Saul, was a period of savage, cruel wars. The troubled reign of David ended, however, in a more peaceful period, preparatory to Solomon's ostentatious reign

Solomon married the daughter of Pharaoh and took her to Jerusalem, where he built his famous temple. He reigned over all Israel, made alliance with the king of Tyre, built cities, accumulated great riches and died after having reigned forty years.

This highest point of kingly glory included seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines, and his reign ended with the division of the country

Jeroboam, king of Israel, reestablished the cult of idols. In this manner he wished to show his independence in the face of Judah, In the meanwhile, Jerusalem passed from a king who "did weird to a king who was evil in the eyes of YHWH."

The people alternately worshipped idols and submitted again to the laws of Moses: hey refused to "humiliate" hemselves before the prophets, then returned to their fear of them.

In the temple, the so called cult of YHWH consisted of a repetition of formulas. The Qabala lamented, wept and cursed in anger through the prophets, but it remained unknown to the people, the kings, and even to the priests.

There was a coffer at the door of the temple where worshippers used to put coins. One day, under the money that was brought into the house of YHWH, Hilkiah the priest found a book of the law of YHWH given by Moses (2 Chron. 34:14).

Ultimately, the movement of the pendulum between YHWHand idols came to a deadlock. It was the end of that 'container,' of that continuity.

The earthly adventure in Canaan had been (and still is) an error of the people. In those times, it was a necessity for the myth. Had not Jerusalem existed as the holy centre of the Mosaic Law YHWH would not have destroyed it. Its importance lies in its destruction, not in its having been built.

For Israel in its true sense, the name Canaan is not that of a country. It has no frontiers. And YHWH in its true meaning is not a deity to be worshipped, least of all in a temple.

YHWH then, realized that Jerusalem as a process could not evolve towards its maturity. Therefore, he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees (2 Chron. 36:17), and Nebuchadnezzar slew all people, young or old; and he brought to Babylon all the treasures of the temple and all the treasures of the kings and princes. And the temple was burnt, and all the palaces. Jerusalem was destroyed. The few people who escaped were carried to Babylon, to fulfil the word of YHWH... until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths.

The land enjoyed 70 years of Sabbaths, after which Babylon was defeated by Cyrus. YHWH stirred up the spirit of Cyrus ... and charged him to build him a house at Jerusalem (Ezra 1 and 2), and those which had been carried away unto Babylon . . . came again into Jerusalem.

The fact that Nebuchadnezzar as king of the Chaldees and the symbolic 70 years of captivity are mentioned, show clearly that the sons of Israel who escaped were driven back by the ruler of their prenatal land. They were, symbolically, thrown back inside the womb, so as to be born again. The 70 years are a sign of renewal. Under that sign, Babylon was destroyed, and Cyrus liberated the captives,

When the sons of Israel returned to Jerusalem, they were "reborn" , to an extent that they had forgotten their mother tongue. They did not, however, come to realize what their universal mission was. They began to rebuild the temple, but not without great difficulties and delays.

Eventually, the temple was completed and all the people gathered themselves together as one man into the street that was before the water gate; and they spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which YHWH had commanded to Israel (Neh. 8:1). (Note the symbol "water gate".)

With Ezra, the knowledge of the Qabala reemerged. It was an understanding of the primordial Revelation, combined with a submission to the laws of Moses. This double connection permitted that very small nation to survive despite the Persian domination

According to tradition, the Book was rewritten by Ezra, who is said to have given the ideograms the shapes which we know today and to have put together the first five books, partly from oral traditions, partly from written documents.

Then came an historical period similar to many others. Hellenism influenced some of the people. As in every happy period, some Jews became assimilated, others continued to submit to the domination of ritual, and the Qabala once again disappeared from sight.

That period lasted until it was brutally interrupted by the Syrian kings, who embarked upon another period of warfare.

(The memory of Judas Maccabaeus is still alive today.) Jerusalem was captured and freed several times. Revolt sueceeded revolt until the conquest of Judah by the Romans.

The history from then on is well-known. We come to the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in A.D. 70, and the ceaseless revolts of the Jews, which culminated, in A.D. 135, with the final destruction of Jerusalem by Hadrian and the Dispersion, or Diaspora.

The first three centuries of our era were a period of intense intellectual activity and of confusion of mind. Judaism was subject to ruptures of all kinds. A Hellenistic-Judaism, opposed to a Talmudic rabbinism, both conflicted with a very powerful -- although little-known -- undercurrent of anti-sacerdotalism, which proclaimed that the universal message of Israel had been betrayed by the party of the Temple.

The author of Baruk's Apocalypse es orders to all the priests to throw the key of the sanctuary to heaven, and to ask YHWH to preserve the House that they have not been able to hold.

The apocalyptic period did not last. Some took refuge in hope: "the Temple will be rebuilt someday." Craving for its own continuity, the synagogue settled on a few relics of ritualistic prescriptions. The Qabala became secret, occult. That germ of life hid itself in an impenetrable shell.

The outer authority was taken in charge by Instructors: the Tanaim. They were the custodians of the Torah, of the Law, of the prescriptions. They did not seek to proselytize. Their field of activity did not extend outside Israel. They had but one aim: the remoulding of an entity, Israel, without a State and without Jerusalem.

Their action was based on the Law and on the Commentaries (which became the part of the Talmud called the Mishnah), and on a life of incredible abnegation and sanctity, going as far as martyrdom. (It is enough to remember the names of Rabbi Meir and Akibah.)

It is true that some of those rabbis knew the Qabala in its exoteric sense, based on the laws of Moses better than they knew the original Revelation as it existed in a past more remote than the times of Moses. They believed that the symbolic narrative of Genesis was a description of actual facts, and they read those facts upside down according to their spoken languages; they believed in Adam's sin and the fall of Man, they worshipped a deity which cannot but be anthropomorphized when it is prayed to. The secret code of the Qabala was a closed book for most, except Akibah, and perhaps a few others. But it was necessary that it should be so, that in all their charity, in their intense activity, they might play their part in this drama.
It was because of those meek doctors of the Law that the Gospels were defeated in their attempts to free themselves from the Hebrew myth,

These doctors were so obstinately adamant that the first Christians were compelled to avail themselves of Abraham and to find in him the origin of their creed.

Their wish was the opposite of the syncretism towards which our time seems to direct itself. If they claimed Abraham, it was in the hope of substituting themselves for the people who had made a covenant with YHWH.

The Qabala knows that YHWH is not a deity but an immanence which can become alive and active when the two vitalities in us, the container and the contained, fecundate each other. Historically, those vitalities of Israel came into being when the mistaken expression, material and materializing, of the Temple and of Jerusalem, was destroyed. The Qabala, for the time being, obeyed the Law, and reciprocally the Law held the Qabala in great respect and honour.

Such was the truth of those times: the biological necessity of Israels mystery. If the first three centuries following the destruction of Jerusalem were the most intense in the life of Israel, it was because everything had been destroyed.

The great initiator of the Qabala in the second century was Simeon-Bar-Yohai. Against the powerful movements called the Talmud and the Qabala, the Christians were helpless.

They found all sorts of arguments. They said -- erring profoundly -- that Abraham's faith was more important than the circumcision, that Abraham is "the father of nations," that the Patriarchs obviously did not obey the Law of Moses, and that, conditioned by these laws, the Jews were only a lateral branch of the human tree,

Interpreting an important theme of Genesis in a certain fashion (which will be explained later on), the Christians proclaimed themselves to be the "eldest" because they had come "after" srael. Had they been more mature ontologically, they would have had, perhaps, some reason for saying so. But, in fact, they were not mature.

On the Jewish side, other currents were seeking to express themselves. One thought the Law of Moses to be monolithic, and decreed that it must be obeyed in its every detail. They reasoned that, the Temple being destroyed, it was absolutely impossible to follow all the prescriptions, and that therefore it would be a sin to interpret them according to circumstances.

Others said, "Better transform than do nothing; at least, it will help to keep them in memory."

In Alexandria these developed a strong tendency not unlike that of our "reformed" synagogues.

Other Jews declared themselves to be more Jewish than all other Jews, because they were disciples of the Rabbi Jesus, in whom they saw the embodiment of the essence of Israel, which is life- death and resurrection.

We cannot have an adequate idea of the great turmoil which marked the period from approximately the third to the seventh centuries. Its centre was Alexandria. All the documentation of those centuries was stored in its library, which was burned at least three times.

One of the Ptolemys tried to launch a syncretic deity, Serapis, but his attempt did not succeed in reviving the ancient Egyptian religion. Another Ptolemy patronized the translation of the Bible into Greek. According to a legend seventy learned men made seventy absolutely identical translations of it!

Aquila, a disciple of Akibah in the time of Hadrian also made a translation into Greek. A certain Symmacus, at the end of the eighth century, made another translation which was used by a Judaeo-Christian sect.

Thus there were three different versions: the Septuagint, which was the official one in use by the church; Aquilas which was adopted by the Jews of the Diaspora; and that of Symmacus. Later on the Septuagint was accepted by the synagogues of the Diaspora who despised Aquila the proselyte.

Many other Greek versions were made. Origen who spent many years of his life in comparing them and St. Jerome who learned Hebrew for the purpose of a translation into Latin must also be mentioned.

We thus see that the widespread enthusiastic fashion for translations is not a privilege of our own times. As far back as the second century, the synagogues attempted to go towards the outer world rather than to retire into the Talmud. For that purpose, they adopted foreign languages for their liturgy.

Many Jews, however, said that when the version of the Seventy came out it was a time of great sorrow and mourning for the rabbis who knew that the text cannot be translated. They put ashes on their heads, they tore their garments, they wept and cried out that such a sacrilege had never before been committed, not even when the Golden Calf had been set up, that it would have been better not to have been born than to have witnessed the day that the Torah was translated.

Without indulging in such an excessive display of grief, it cannot but be declared that they were perfectly right. The undercurrent of their violent reaction was intensified because the Temple was no more.

The real disciple of Akibah was not Aquila, the proselyte translator. Akibah is the very source of two parallel trends, thanks to which the Book is still alive. Akibah had two important disciples: Rabbi Meir, the master of the Talmud, and the miraculous Simeon-Bar-Yohai, the "holy lamp of Israel," to whom is attributed the origin of the Zohar, which Moses de Leon is supposed to have written in Spain in the thirteenth century, according to certain authoritative opinions.

A note of doubt is necessary as far as the origin, dates and authors of cabalistic writings are concerned. For instance, the well-known Sepher Yetzirah is known to have been written in a period preceding the birth of Islam, at any time between the sixth century B.C. and the sixth century of our era. Any scientific research within so wide a margin is hopeless.

The Sepher Yetzirah is a very short text which emerges from the thick forest of the Talmud and the Zohar. It is mentioned because it is characteristic of the way in which cabalists deliberately enrobed their knowledge in cryptic and apparently absurd utterances.

An attempted English translation of its first lines would read approximately thus: "By thirty-two mysterious paths of wisdom, Yah, the Lord of Armies, God alive . . . has engraved and created His world with three Sepharim . . . ten Sephiroth Belimah and twenty-letters of foundation," etc.

We have repeatedly stated that the letters of the Hebrew alphabet have always been, throughout the centuries, the foundation of the true tradition and the only key to the knowledge of the Hebrew Revelation.

Of course, the statement that a deity created the Universe by means of the Hebrew alphabet is literally absurd. It can be expressed differently in stating that every letter is, in fact, an ideogram which symbolizes one aspect of the cosmic energy. Thus we know where to look for meaning and purpose of the biblical text: it describes the interplay of those energies in the Universe and in Man. Thus we free our minds from all mystical imaginings. In following the text we then are subjected to an amazing mental exercise which can modify our way of thinking to the extent of uniting us with those very energies which are being described. That and that only, is the Revelation.

At all times the rabbinical principle has held that nothing in the Genesis is there by mere chance or by mistake; nothing is useless; every repetition has its purpose; and the different grammatical mistakes according to the Hebrew language are no mistakes at all: when read according to code they reveal their meaning.

Every epoch has its own way of understanding things and of feeling them. When truth is met it is expressed differently images, legends may have conveyed a meaning for the understanding. We, today, need a psychological and rational approach. Therefore it is useless -- and, we venture to say, harmful -- for us to dally with interpretations of interpretations of what people have supposed to be revelations put forward by Abraham, Moses or Jesus.

We have not the time to spend in the consideration of antiquated approximations to knowledge. Therefore no mere student of Qabala will ever understand the Qabala from within. Were he to read and reread the Zohar, learn all about Simeon Bar-Yohai, Moses of Leon, Abraham, Abulafia or Knorr von Rosenroth's Kabbala Denudata, he would be trying to see by looking through the wrong end of a telescope

Nothing is important except the knowledge that the key to that Revelation is to be found in the letter-numbers. When once we grasp that, we can grope our way through them, and our very first step will already have been taken inside their cosmic life.

That Revelation is timeless and is therefore of all time. One cannot contact it if it is imagined to have happened in the past. It is of now when we accept it to be of now. Unless we are fully of our time we are seeking it in its tracks on the sands of time.

The situation of the twentieth-century man in relation to the Bible is entirely different from what it was in the second century. In those times the early Christians were trying to dissociate themselves from the Jews who had been deprived of their Church. They proclaimed that the destruction of theTemple had been a punishment and that a new Church must take the place of the old.

e have already seen some of their arguments. Their opposition to the Jews developed and intensified to the point of degenerating into a theological anti-Semitism. The Jews became hated because they "had murdered God." With John Chrysostom, the Christian exegesis at its lowest level became a purely abusive oratory. According to YHWH's welt-known reactions it stirred the rabbis to a still greater energy. They taught.

"Do the Christians appeal to Abraham? The Qabala declares itself prior to him."

"Is Mosaic law only a lateral branch of the human tree? On the contrary, it is the protective shell of the living Revelation."

"Does faith save? Not at all. Only the Covenant with YHWH is life."

"Are the ritual prescriptions a punishment? Of course not: they prove YHWH's love for his people."

"Is Christianity the true Israel, as it attempts to say? But when, how, in what circumstance has it wrestled with Elohim     and defeated him, as Jacob did when he deserved and received that name: Israel?"

From the second century until the Middle Ages the Qabala spread in every direction. Eastward, it went to Egypt, Asia Minor, Arabia, Persia and as far as India. It can be found in the Quran, and it is established that the Prophet Mohammad hadbeen taught by Rabbis. It was carried by the Jews and Arabs into Spain, to the south of France and as far as the Anglo-Saxon world.

The end of the fourteenth century was the beginning of tragic times for the Jews. They were persecuted in Spain and expelled. They sought refuge wherever they could find it.

It was again for the Qabala a period of confusion and decline all over Europe. Although it was respected by some free minds among philosophers, alchemists and a few mystics, it degenerated into a symbolic caricature of occultism and, with the added attacks of the anti-Semites; it died an ignoble death in cheap modern novels.

It had not died everywhere. By a strange historical freak, it reappeared in Egypt when Isaac Loria discovered the Zohar in Cairo. The school of Safed, which he founded, reestablished the broken link between the observance of rites and the Shekinah (YHWH's   exile from this earth). The school eventually degenerated into an excessive asceticism, alien to the true knowledge of the Qabala.

The state of symbiosis between Knowledge and Law had come to an end.

The last blow was given by the Jewish scholars of the nineteenth century belonging to the rational school of Judaeo-German origin. This school of thought is still in existence today, and is backed by Zionism, by the synagogues and by the official voice of International Judaism

It considers that the qabalistical tradition in its totality is a mystical rambling which has been a poison for Israel.

This rationalism is partly responsible for the picture, common to some religions, of a YHWH     reduced to an avatar of Zeus or Jupiter, sitting in a heaven. But
YHWH     in the true sense of its letter-code schema cannot be corrupted by any wrong usage which is made of it. Rationalization is a corruption in itself

The knowledge that is called Qabala must no longer be reduced to a mere subject of study for seekers of recondite mysteries. It must now come to full light and penetrate serious minds.

The synagogues can only ignore it because they have repudiated intelligence. They keep on reading and commenting on an archaic law which has no reality. The real knowledge of the Qabala recedes further and further every day because of the foolish teachings of amateur scholars who, having learned a few tricks which can be played with the letter-numbers, amuse the public with their speculations, or entertain their readers with strange stories concerning some ancient Rabbi.

The modern Rabbis have become archivists of formulas and preachers of conventional morality. We believe that most of them are quite ignorant of esoteric rabbinism, and of its many interpretations, quite aside from the plain reading of the Book.

A Christian Qabala has been attempted in vain, its roots being artificial. It was intended as a substitute for the Hebrew rather than as an authentic penetration into the Scriptures

As to the new settling of a State in the geographical Canaan, it can be understood because of the abominable slaughter ordered under the Nazi regime. From a human point of view, it corresponds to a necessity for survival and to the recurring wish expressed unto Samuel to be like unto the other nations.

It is to be hoped that to these "husbandmen" of the earth, YHWH   will say what he said to Jonah: And should I not spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle?

In brief, the Qabala today can be reborn neither in the Synagogue nor in the State that calls itself Israel. Both ignore it, so it ignores them. It has no valid motive for conforming to the very few Mosaic prescriptions which still survive and which every conforming Jew interprets according to his fancy.

It must offer itself freely to minds which are free. It is no longer mysterious and occult. On the contrary, it is intelligible and marvelously intelligent. It is the very source of the civilizations that have gravitated around the Mediterranean which are today spreading all over our planet.

It states the religious problem as it has to be stated in a time when the further the horizon recedes, the nearer we come to the Mystery.

For such minds as are no longer bounded by ancient horizons and have thus become a mystery unto themselves, the totality of life is present in action. It is the Soliloquy of the One

This is the true Revelation, plainly visible to all.