Madame Blavatsky on the Ten Sephiroth

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Secret Doctrine's First Proposition Series · 13 pages

Thirteen pages with a contents page and abstract of central ideas, carrying *three diagrams* reproduced from elsewhere in this series — Hindu versus Chaldeo-Jewish cosmogonies, Eastern and Kabbalistic cosmogonies are identical, and the Pythagorean world as root of illusion. The frontispiece is by KelbremDusk.

The first caution is that the three higher Sephiroth are kabbalistic blinds for supercosmic abstractions — that is, deliberate concealments rather than descriptions. The scheme is then set out. The Aïn Soph or Boundless is infinite, all-inclusive and unconditioned; in order to make its existence perceptible to finite minds it becomes a bounded creative force, emanating from the divine light of a female power, the Sephirah, nine further Sephiroth or intelligences. The Sephirah is therefore described as the crown and essence of the nine which emanate from her, and the host of ten, issuing from one cause, constructs the universe out of chaos — three trinities with their emanative principle forming the Pythagorean mystic decad which represents the whole cosmos. The identification made across traditions is characteristic of this series: the Sephiroth are said to be identical with the Amshaspends or Holy Seven of the Persians and with the Dhyani-Chohans of The Secret Doctrine. One question is raised and answered separately, and it is the one a careful reader would ask on being told that the Sephirah emanates the nine — namely, how the seven Sephiroth emanate the Sephirah in their turn.

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