KABBALAH

As shown in Part one of this essay Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code relies heavily on the Gnostic doctrine of a Divine Feminine Principle, Sophia, that informs man of his own divine nature, who is the true,( but denied by the Catholic Church), object of worship for humanity. At the end of Mr. Brown’s fantasy, he points to the "foot worn path" in Rosalyn Chapel, (Scotland) tracing out the intersection of two opposing triangles ∆, representing "the blade" (m), and ∇ "the chalice" (f) as "the key" to universal understanding. This configuration t known as the Magen David, is not, as commonly supposed, a religious symbol of Biblical Judaism, but is a universal "magical" sign that entered into both Jewish and Arabic common usage in the Christian middle ages. According to Jewish historian, Gersholm Scholem, it first became popular among the Kabalists of Prague from whence it spread throughout European Jewry. Given the forth coming film version of the Da Vinci Code, this second part looks more deeply into beliefs and symbolism of the Kabbalah to further grasp the underlying "theology" of Mr. Brown’s premise.

       
KABBALAH

A Brief History

Kabbalah, simply stated, again, according to Gershom Scholem, the world’s greatest authority on the subject, is "Jewish mystical theology." Although many adepts claim that the Kabbalah or secret oral tradition goes back to Moses or even Adam, Scholem places its practical beginnings in the Second Temple period, posterior to the Babylonian exile. 1. (The words Cabala, Kabbalah, Qabalah etc. are virtually interchangeable. Kabbalah is used here as in Scholem's works.)

Once again, according to Scholem, the development of Kabbalah was coeval with Hellenistic syncretic religion and Gnosticism, with the descending spiritual Hyposteses of the Gnostics corresponding to the Merkaba (Throne) mysticism of the Rabbis 2. Both Hellenistic Gnosis and Rabbinical Gnosis were based on the theory that there are spiritual emanations of God (Aeons and Archons for the Greek, Sephirot for the Hebrew) which fill a monistic universe (Pleroma for the Greek, Zimzum for the Hebrew) which, if properly understood and harnessed lead back to the deity. In this vein, Philo of Alexandria's De Vita Contemplativa, which laid out the path for ecstatic union with the divine essence according to a mystical exegesis of scripture, was an early (1st century) attempt at the fusion of Hebrew law with Neo-Platonism and theosophical Gnosis. 3.

Historically, the esoteric teachings contained in the Kabbalah passed from such groups as the Essenes or Qumran apocalyptics through the Diaspora to the Medieval Provençal and Spanish thinkers who produced the Sepher Yezira (Book of Creation) and Zohar (Book of Splendor). These speculations were further developed in the sixteenth century by Jacob Cordovero and Isaac Luria whose writings led to the Messianic hopes placed in Shabbetai Zevi in 1666. Since that time, in Jewish circles, the Kabbalah lay in fermentation among the Hasidim (Pious ones) of Eastern Europe and the Doenmeh, a strange group of followers of the failed Messiah, Shabbetai Zevi, who became false converts to other religions in order to seek redemption through apostasy and sin. 4. The Late Rabbi Schneerson of the Lubavicher movement was a modern day Hasid preaching the Kabbalistic doctrine of Hochmah (Wisdom), Binah (Intelligence), and Daath (Harmony, Balance), described below.

Interest in the Kabbalah has awakened in recent years among certain Jewish groups due to the Aliya or Jewish ingathering and the re-establishment of the State of Israel. The influence of the Kabbalah on segments of Christian thinking has flourished since the Renaissance. It was openly quoted in the works of such influential thinkers as Pico della Mirandola, Johannes Reuchlin, Agrippa of Nettesheim, Cardinal Egidio da Viterbo, the Franciscan Friar, Francesco Giorgio of Venice, as well as the apostate Dominican, Giordano Bruno. The tradition carried through into the 17th century in the writings of Jacob Boehme and culminated in the eighteenth century within the esoteric writings of such figures as Martines de Pasqually and Louis Claude de Saint Martin. 5. In modern times it may be found as the core doctrine of occult, theosophical Freemasonry. 6. (See: Kabbalah and Freemasonry below)

          Doctrine – Dialectical Monism

In a much simplified exposition of the basic Kabalistic doctrine all begins with Ein-Soph ( alt. Ayn- Soph, En-Soph) the infinite or literally without measure, which contains within its essence both the active and passive ( male and female, good and evil) principles in their full potential. In the beginning, before there was anything, the eternal source, Ein-Soph contracted itself within and then filled the subsequent void with emanations of its own essence. This contraction and expansion is called the Zimzum. (See: Fig. 1,(Left) Illustrations - following the text)

According to the Zohar (Book of Splendor), what was engraved first on the void were the words: "Let there be light." in the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet Whereupon El Gadol (Great God) emerged from the primal ether on the right as the masculine principle and Elohim (Darkness) emerged on the left as the feminine principle. Then appeared the actual "Light" signifying "that the Left was included in the Right and the Right in the Left." 7. From the initial point of light streamed forth, in concentric circles, ten mystical numbers or paths known as Sephiroth. The names of these Sephiroth are as follows: Keter (Crown); Binah (Intelligence); Hokmah (Wisdom) Gevurah (Justice); Gedullah (Greatness); Tiferet (Beauty); Hod (Honor); Nezah (Victory); Yesod (Foundation); and Malkhut (Kingdom). These Sephiroth would come to form Adam Kadmon the celestial archetypal man.

 This was not the Adam of the Bible but a cosmic prototype for all of reality akin to the Neo-Platonic Demiurge. (Cosmic Christ?) The Sephiroth may also be displayed as the descending Azilut - emanations - which form the "Tree of Life." (Fig. 2 –6, Illustrations)

The first three Sephiroth: Keter (Crown); Binah (Intelligence); and Hokhma (Wisdom) received the "Light" and contained it. (See the three faces in the diagram above) Thus the divine essence is preserved in a tripartite interrelationship, or immanent "Trinity" within the mind of Adam Kadmon, the macrocosm and within the mind of individual man, the microcosm. The following seven Sephiroth could not contain the light and shattered, forming shards of coagulated energy (matter) called Kelippot. The farther the Sephirah lies from the center, the denser the matter. Malkhuth, therefore, as farthest away from the center, forms the earthly kingdom or the feet of Adam Kadmon. (See again: Fig.1,)

Through the break up of the Sephiroth, the equilibrium and unity of God has been destroyed. The "light" and the "dark" of the primal Light have been separated and it is the obligation of man to re-establish both his own inner unity or wholeness and the wholeness of God. To accomplish this project called Tikkun, The Jewish people as Knesset Israel have the predominant role. According to the Kabbalah, from the earliest Spanish manuscripts onward, the Jewish race has seen itself as the representative of the Shekhinah ** the feminine principle, split off from God. 8. (The word Shekhinah is not a Biblical word but derives from the Kabalistic writings esp. the 11^th C. Zohar) a According to a Hasidic Tradition it is said: " Just because of this split, God needs man, whose task it is to reunite the riven opposites within the divine personality itself. From this point of view the exile of the Jewish people receives deep and special meaning. For this exile of the people corresponds in the `upper world, so to speak, to an exile of the Shekinah (supposed feminine half of God) who went into exile with them. The return of the Jewish people from exile therefore means, in Jewish mysticism, the redemption of the Jewish people; it is above all an earthly image, and likeness of an inner-divine drama of redemption, of the homecoming of the Shekhina to God... So while man needing redemption strives to restore the disturbed world order, he is at the same time working toward the redemption of God and his union with the Shekhinah and thus toward the restoration and realization of the wholeness of God." 9. A tradition also holds that the final Masiach, messiah, who will achieve Tikkun Olam, or "world harmony", will be a manifestation of the Shekinah, i.e., female. (See addendum at end of text.)

Within the overall historical perspective and purpose of the Kabbalah i.e., the Latin Renaissance concept of Coincidetia Oppoiturum or fusion of opposites, (light-dark; active-passive; male-female; Elhohim - Shekhinah), there remain two fundamental problems to be resolved. First is the relationship of the individual human being to God and second the problem of evil.

For the Kabalistic initiate, while awaiting the final restoration of history, there are various techniques available for personal spiritual development. One is meditation on the mysteries of the Sephiroth called Kavvanah and another involving numerology is called Gematria. The technique of Kavvanah involves mental concentration on the combinations of the sacred names which pave the way for ecstatic union with the divine source, Metatron, (Alternately known as the prince of God's countenance, Prince of this world, Angel of light, or ones own true self). 10. This union is mystically known as Zivvug ha-Kadosh, or coupling face to face, which is said to produce an internal harmony of the restrictive (passive) powers of Din and the out flowing (active) powers of Rahanim. Once again one finds Concordia Discors, or Coincidentia Oppositorum, the fusion of opposites as object of the endeavor. 11.

Seen in this light, the parallel between Kabbalah and the Eastern Religions is quite obvious. It is, of course, the resolution in harmony of the passive Yin and the active Yang according to the Tao which produces the "enlightened" state where "all duality merges into oneness, a noble path that leads to contentment and peace." 12. In reality, according to Gershom Scholem, "the Techniques of `prophetic Kabbalah' that were used to aid the ascent of the soul, such as breathing exercises, the repetition of the Divine Names, and meditation on colors, bear a marked resemblance to those of both Indian Yoga and Muslim Sufism." 13. Gematria on the other hand, involves the belief that the Hebrew alphabet is the first emanation of Ayn-Sof and that the arrangement of these 22 letters, according to their numerical value, make up the seventy-two sacred names of the All Holy as well as the cosmos. Gematria can be used for the concordance of Biblical texts and messianic prophecy as well as in calling up spirits. 14. This latter property may be employed, at least in theory, both for good and for evil. The manipulator of spirits, (good or evil) is called a Ba’al Shem or master of the divine names. 15. According to legend, in the 16th century, Rabbi Loewe used Gematria to create a fearsome creature called the Golem to protect the Prague Ghetto.

The problem of evil for the Kabalistic is complex, as, if all comes from and is contained in the Ayn Sof what man calls evil must be intrinsic to the divine nature. What is it, then, in the divine nature that may be called "evil?" Once again, according to Scholem: "The determining factor is the estrangement of created things from their source of emanation, a separation which leads to manifestations of what appears to us to be the power of evil. But the other [evil] has no metaphysical reality ... outside the structure of the Sephiroth ... the Sepher Gevurah as `the left hand of the Holy One blessed be He,' and as `a quality whose name is evil' … has many offshoots in the forces of judgement, the constricting and limiting powers of the universe"

Cutting through the flowery rhetoric, it would appear that Evil, for the Kabalistic, is any force that restricts or limits (divine) human freedom and creativity. It [evil] reverts to that part of God which is designated, " Pure judgement, untempered by any mitigating admixture, [which has] produced from within itself the sitra ahra (the other side)… The `emanation of the left.'" 16. According to Nathan of Gaza, the grand apologist of 17th century Shabbetean Kabbalah The first light was entirely active [creative] and the second light entirely passive [restrictive] immersed in the depths of itself. "The root of evil is a principle within the Ayn-Soph itself which holds itself aloof from creation and seeks to prevent the forms of light which contain thought from being actualized, not because it is evil by nature but only because its whole desire is that nothing should exist apart from Ayn-Soph." For the Kabalistic, of whatever school, neither good nor evil exist as such. Whatever meaning there is to existence involves Tikkun or the restoration of harmony and balance between the forces of expansive light and restrictive darkness until all is once again absorbed in the Ayn-Soph.

These speculations, it seems, are the inevitable result of dialectic opposition in a monistic system. The argument is as follows: If the universe is an overflowing or projection of God, (See Plotinus Ennead 5) and the universe contains what man calls "evil," then "evil" is contained in the nature of God. If, however, God is all good, then evil is not evil, it is but the dark side or foil of good. There is, in fact, no other possible logical solution to the problem of evil in a universe produced by emanation rather than creation from nothing. As man develops his own inner divine potential (individually and collectively) as an emanation of God there must be a balance of the progressive and the restrictive within the person and society to attain the ideal. This was, of course, the "enlightenment" proposed by Leibnitz in his Théodicée. 17. This form of thinking has impacted Western thought from the 16th century to the present.

In terms of eschatology, the imanentist theology of the Kabbalah must inevitably lead to the doctrine of Apokatastasis the reintegration of all spiritual emanations, active and passive, "good" and "evil," into the divinity at the end of time. If God is all, then God can not leave part of himself out side of himself forever. This is precisely what the Kabbalah predicts, after myriad reincarnations, the souls of all men * as well as of angels and demons will form once again the unity of God. As the forces of creative light expand in man and dark judgement is absorbed, so also shall it be with God. It is even said that the Arch Devil Samael will be transformed at time's end to Sa’el one of the 72 holy Names of God.18

An interesting addendum is that of Polish "convert" from Judaism to Catholicism, Jacob Frank. Frank first claimed himself to be the Messiah in Poland in 1756 as part of a Kabalistic Trinity made up of Attika Kadisha (The Holy Ancient One), Melika Kadisha ( The Holy King –Messiah), and the Shekhinah (feminine earthly half of the divinity). As he was persecuted by the Orthodox Jewish community for his bizarre faith and orgiastic initiations, he and many of his followers came into the Catholic Church precisely to introduce a feminine, or earthly, element, the Shekhinah, into the Christian Trinity under the guise of the Blessed Virgin Mary. (secretly present in his own daughter Eva, but to be made manifest in the last days) 21.

 ** The word Shekinah, simply said, does not appear in the Hebrew Bible. The term MiShKaN, from which the word Shekinah is derived, refers to the Sanctuary in the wilderness not - He?She?- who dwells therein. As Feminist Hebrew scholar/Rabbi, Lynn Gottlieb in her book, She Who Dwells Within, points out, "The word Shekinah first appears in the Mishna and Talmud (ca 200 CE), where it is used interchangeably with WHVH and Elohim as names of God…. By 1000 CE, the very mythologies so suppressed in the Bible erupted in the heart of Jewish mysticism, known as the Kabul, and Shekinah became YHVH’ wife, lover and daughter." This word only entered into common usage among Jewish thinkers in Medieval Spain where "Kabalistic" (Gnostic) mysticism took root from the writings of Moses de Leon in the Sefer ha-Zohar or Book of Splendor (c. 1280 AD).

As explained by Daniel Matt in his Essential Kabbalah, "In Kabbalah, Shekhinah becomes full-fledged She: …the feminine half of God." This doctrine spread through Southern Europe to Palestine and Turkey and then upward to Poland and Russia after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. More recently, Joseph Dan of the University of Jerusalem in an interview with Jewish Book News (May 9th 1996 issue) states, "The Kaballah insists that there is a feminine aspect within the divinity itself, the Shekhinah, and therefore …sexual life is applicable to the divine world."

In the No. 2 - 2003 issue of 30 Days magazine there is an article by Italian theologian, Massimo Borghesi, which, without singling out Kabbalah, had the following to say regarding Gnostic dualism in general that is significant to this study:

" The Serpent, the tempter, appears in the guise of the liberator, the one who raises man beyond g and evil, beyond the God of old, foe of freedom. The last two hundred years have rediscovered the ‘the liberator principle of the world [affirmed] by the Ophite sect’, a principle foreshadowed in the notions of Shabbatai Zevi with his Messiah consigned to the ‘serpents’"… "Hegel, with his dialectic of the negative, was to give rich theoretical guise to this idea. Man must sin, must come out of natural innocence to Become God. He must realize the promise of the serpent: must know like God, good and evil. This knowledge ‘is the origin of sickness, but also the fountainhead of health, it is the poisoned chalice from which man drinks death and putrefaction, and at the same time the wellspring of reconciliation, since to posit oneself as wicked is in itself the overcoming of evil’." …[Jakob] Bőhme, according to Hegel, ‘struggled to understand in God and from God the negative, evil, the Devil ‘. God is the unity of contraries, of anger and love, of evil and good, of the Devil and his contrary, the Son. On this view Christ and Satan become in some way brothers, sons of the one Father, parts of him, moments in his polar nature." … This is an idea set down by Carl Gustav Jung in his esoteric Septem Sermones ad Mortuos written in 1916, circulated as a monograph among his friends and never published. The text, which borrows conceptually from the Gnostic Basilides, affirms the ‘pleroma’ nature of God, composed from pairs of opposites of which, God and devil are the prime manifestations." … "Everywhere at work – Romano Gurdini wrote in 1964 – there is the fundamental Gnostic idea that contraries are polarities: Goethe, Gide, and C.G. Jung, Th [omas]. Mann, H[erman] Hesse… All see evil, the negative […] as dialectical elements in the totality of life, of nature’. This attitude for Guardini, ‘manifest itself already in everything that is called Gnosticism, in alchemy, in theosophy. It presents itself in programmatic form in Goethe, for whom the satanic enters even into God; evil is the original power of the universe necessary as good, death only another element in that everything, the pole opposite which is which is called life. This opinion has been proclaimed in all forms and made concrete in the field of therapy by C.G Jung."

That Kabalistic thought continues alive and flourishing in the modern world, one may add the favorable words of Jorge Luis Borges regarding "The Kabbalah" presented in his 1984 (English translation) Seven Nights: "Borges takes us on an intellectual stroll through "The Kabbbalah." In it he considers the necessity of evil, and its justification, theodicy. … He cites the Two Libraries of Leibnitz: one containing 1,000 copies of only the one perfect book, the Aeneid; the other boasting only one copy of this perfect book. The999 imperfect books of the second make it superior. Evil is in the variety, but variety is necessary for the world." (Emphasis added) … "The lesson of the Kabbalah, Borges tells us in his succinct if disparate, essay, is in the doctrine the Greeks called apokatastaisis: that all creatures, including Cain and the Devil, will return, at the end of great transmigration’s, to be mingled again with the Divinity from which they once emerged." 22 (Might this concept of Leibnitz Library be applied to certain more radical ecumenical movements?)

1. Gershom Scholem Kabbalah (New York, Dorset Press, 1987) p. 3 - 5. The Second Temple period dates from the return of the Jewish people from the Babylonian exile in 538 BC until the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 AD. The influence of Sumerian and/or Persian religion on the exiled Jewish community has been suggested as a possible source of the Kabbalah
3. Ibid. pp. 5-12

3. Ibid. Pp. 8-22 The book of Genesis, for example, is treated as an esoteric explanation of the entrapment of the soul in matter in its descent from the world of Azilut into the world of creation Beriah and the book of Exodus, by contrast, begins the work of liberation and re-ascent of the soul to the spiritual order.

    

4. N.B. ibid. 284, 327 - 332 According to Scholem, after the false Messiah, Shabbetai Zevi converted to Islam in 1666 many of his followers (known as Doenmeh – apostates) did so as well. According to the 18^th C. Polish Shabbatean, Jacob Frank, the raison d’être of these conversions would appear to be as follows: "under the `burden of silence' the true believer, who has God in his secret heart, should go through all religions, all rites, and established orders without accepting any and indeed annihilating all from within and thereby establishing true freedom. Organized religion is only a cloak to be put on and thrown away on the way to the `sacred knowledge,' the gnosis of the place where all traditional values are destroyed in the stream of `life'." In this regard it should be noted that the Doenmeh indulged in orgiastic sexual activity especially during the spring festival Hag ha-Keves. Scholem also acknowledges that this movement influenced the universal upheavals of the eighteenth century as for-runner of the Enlightenment, Jacobinism and Freemasonry. He cites as some of the acknowledged Doenmeh of history: the majority of Kemal Ataturk's `Young Turk' movement and the founder of Polish Messianism, the poet Adam Mickiewicz.

    

5. Ibid. pp. 197 – 201
7. Albert Pike .Morals and Dogma of Free Masonry (Charleston, Southern Jurisdiction Publication, 1871) pp.581-800
9. The Zohar I Sperling and Simon, trans. p. 70, cit. June Singer Androgyny Toward a New Theory of Sexuality (New York: Anchor, 1977) p. 153 N.B. This concept is fundamental to understanding of the Kabbalah as thus can be seen the initial mixing of light and darkness, male and female, good and evil as the initial act of the "One God," and the Kabalistic can pronounce with impunity the traditional Jewish Shema –"Shema Ysrael Adonai Elehenu, Adonai Ehad" "The Lord is God, The Lord is One."

8. Scholem pp. 88 –168 
10. Siegmund Hurwitz Psychological Aspects of Early Hasidic Literature Timeless Documents of Soul (Evanston, IL: North Western University Press, 1968) pp. 202 - 203 cit. Singer, p. 160 
12. Scholem p. 180 

11. Ibid. pp. 141, 143, 161, 162,, 167, 194 

     

12. Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai The Teaching of Buddha (Tokyo, Japan,1970 ) p. 62 

     

13. Ibid. p. 125, See also Malcolm Godwin Angels, An Endangered Species (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990) entry for Metatron pp. 59 –61 
14. Scholem p. 180 
16. Ibid. pp. 337 – 343 
18. Ibid. p. 310 
20. Ibid. p. 127 
22. Ibid. p. 128 

19. Bid. Pp. 156 – 157 

     

20. Genesis 1:1-2 "Berishit Barra Elohim" "In the beginning God created the heavens and earth…" The verb barra in Hebrew means to create from nothing. It is only used for the divine act at the beginning of time. From this Biblical account comes the traditional orthodox Jewish version of creation called Torah di – Beriah as opposed to the Kabalistic Torah de Azilut or world of emanations. In both traditional Jewish and Christian theology, God is worshipped as a personal, omnipotent, omniscient, creator who is other than his creation. For the Roman Catholic, the formula may be stated as follows: "(Deus) … est re et essentia a mundo distinctus, et super omnia praeter ipsum sunt aut concippi posunt ineffabiliter excelsus."Vatican I caps. I, ca 1-4) "(He …is really and essentially distinct from the world...and ineffably raised above all things which are outside of Himself or which can be conceived as being so." 
22. Scholem, p. 302 
24. Anthony Kerrigan, Review of Seven Nights, Jorge Luis Borges (New Directions: NY, 1984) in Winter 1987- The University Bookman, Ed. Russell Kirk

     

(Some, by and large, easily available books consulted for this essay and of use to serious students of the subject)

Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah (New York: Dorset Press, 1987)

Leonard R. Glotzer, The Fundamentals of Jewish Mysticism The Book of Creation and its Commentaries (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson Inc., 1992)

Daniel C. Matt, The Essential Kabbalah The Heart of Jewish Mysticism (San Francisco, CA: Harper San Francisco, 1994

Adin Steinsaltz, The Thirteen Petalled Rose A Discourse on the Essence of Jewish Existence and Belief (New York: Basic Books, 1980)

Rachel Elior, The Pardoxical Ascent to God The Kabbalistic Theosophy of Habad Hasdism (Albany, NY: State of New York University Press, 1993)

Edward Hoffman, The Way of Splendor Jewish Mysticism and Modern Psychology (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson Inc., 1992)

Mordachai Rotenberg, Dialog with Deviance The Hasidic Ethic and Theory of Social Contraction (New York: University Press of America, 1993)

Pinchas Giller, The Enlightened Will Shine Symbolization and Theurgy in the Later Strata of the Zohar (Albany, NY: The State University of New York,1993)

Lyn Gottlieb, She Who Dwells Within A Feminist Vision of a Renewed Judaism (San Francisco, CA: Harpers San Francisco, 1995)

Matityahu Glazerson, Building Blocks of the Soul Studies on the Letters and Words of the Hebrew Language (Nortrhvale, NJ: Jason Aronson Inc. 1997)

Martin Buber, I and Thou (New York: Charles Scribner, 1958)

Francis A. Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, `1984)

Karen Silvia De León-Jones, Giordano Bruno and the Kabbalah (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996)

Kathleen Raine, Yeats The Tarot and the Golden Dawn (Dublin: Dolmen Press, 1976)

June Singer, Androgyny Toward a new Theory of Sexuality (New York: Anchor Press, 1976)

Carl Gustav Jung, Opera Omnia esp. A Psychological Treatise on the Doctrine of the Trinity (Princeton, NJ: Bolingen, Princeton University Press)

 Illustrations

Fig.1 (left) Adam Kadmon depicted as Cosmic Christ on the schematic Tree of Life. The Kabalistic Trinity – Atika Kadisha (Holy One of Old), Meleka Kadisha (Holy King), and the Shekhinah (Feminine presence of God) are above Christ’s head empowering him to bring the divine down to Earth, Malkuth (Right) The Ayn Soph contracts and the expands to fill the void with the divine presence, Zim Zum. The further out from the center, abode of the binary god, Ayn Soph, the denser the material shards, Kelipoth until one reaches the firmament, Malkuth at the outer circle.

Fig. 7 – In the political realm, the working out of Tikkun Olam is the "Dialectic." Both Hegel and Marx were influenced by Kabalistic and the concepts of "Thesis" –"Antithesis"-"Synthesis" closely follows the "Tree of Life" in binary confrontation of the forces of Din (authoritarian judgmental oppression) vs. Hessed or Rahanim (merciful progressive liberation) working toward synthesis and perfection of the Earthly Kingdom, Malkuth through. The resolution of opposites

Fig. 8 – The great lie and true Luciferian nature of Kabbalah is shown in the "icon" above. From the upper right hand corner, a red angel falls, ejected from heaven, downward into the cosmos. According to esoteric legend, it was one or more of these angels that imparted the secret knowledge (Kabbalah) to man. Below the angel is shown a man with three triangles superimposed over him. These represent the three configurations or triads that form the sefirot or vessels of the tree of life. Each sefira, according to the Kabbalah, is a level of attainment in knowledge or balance between the pillar of judgment Din and the pillar of mercy Hessed ( See: Fig. 7 at left) that will lead to enlightenment and harmony. Across at lower right, however, we see a terrified man possessed by the demon (central third eye and reptilian tail). At upper right, heavenly judgment, corner, a black hand covers over and annihilates man.

Fig. 8 - Ultimately the Essential Symbol of the Kabalistic Tikkun Olam is the occult (not Biblical) "Seal of Solomon" representing the Coincidentia Opositorum (Fusion) of Good and Evil to form the "Complete God"

 Freemasonry, A.K.A."The Brotherhood," or "the Craft," is a curious mixture of the medieval stone masons guild and various underground speculative currents of esoteric and occult thought that blossomed throughout Europe in the late 17th and 18th centuries. The origins of Freemasonry are clouded by the vast number of legends put forward by the adherents of the various lodges. As historical fact, however, modern Freemasonry is generally acknowledged to have begun in 1717. At that time various sectarian groups came together to found the Grand Lodge in London as the seat of "speculative," rather than "operative" Freemasons, dedicated to the building of freely perfected men rather than stone cathedrals.

The roots of so called "speculative" masonry, as suggested above, are to be found in the secretive movements that had existed for centuries in Europe as parallel and adversarial to the established order of Christendom. As the power of the Catholic Church weakened under the attacks of both Protestantism and Renaissance humanism, such latent esoteric movements as Catharism (Manechean dualism) in France, Jewish theosophy -Kabbalah- in Spain, and Alchemy throughout Europe gained respectability. This trend was aggravated by the arrival of Egyptian Hermetecism- a Gnostic philosophy that openly preached the divinity of man- which entered Italy after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. These movements coalesced in to such "secret brotherhoods" as Rosicrucians in England as well as Germany and Shabbateans in Eastern Europe in the 17th century. These in turn in the 18th and 19th centuries influenced the Bavarian Illuminati, Italian Carbonari and Polish Frankists whose adepts openly asserted their influence on the political affairs of their day, especially in the "Young Europe" political parties. Although these societies and movements had distinct structures and rituals, all shared a single common denominator, the belief in the perfectibility of man and society through political action without need of the Church with her dogmas, discipline and sacraments. Rather than confront the Church head on, these groups, under the umbrella of the Masonic brotherhood, generally attempted to subvert rather than destroy the religious faith of the unwary.

In contrast to the English Grand Lodge Masonry with its "religious" overtones, as described above, there also exists a distinct, but linked, European Grand Orient Masonry based on the "Deist" or even, since the declarations of 1777, openly atheist philosophy of the French Enlightenment. Virtually all the precursors of the French Revolution, Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot, and Robespierre were Grand Orient Masons. Generally speaking, the goal of the Grand Orient Lodges has been to openly confront the Roman Catholic Church with its hierarchical structure of government topped by the Pope in Rome by espousing revolution and radical democracy.

The Church, from the beginning, has fought back against Freemasonry with all of its strength. There have been dozens of warnings and encyclical letters issued by the Holy See regarding the dangers of Masonry. The foremost of these is that of Pope Leo the XIII titled Humanum Genus, published in 1884. In this document the Pope clearly states that the conspiratorial society of Freemasons shelters "the partisans of evil" and is, at its root, "Satanic" in nature. * According to the 1917 Code of Cannon Law, article #2335, to belong to a Freemasonic Lodge was grounds for automatic excommunication Latae Sententiae. (The act itself bringing the penalty without formal accusation.) Although no longer grounds for ipso facto excommunication, Cardinal Ratzinger reiterated the incompatibility of Masonry and Catholicism in 1985.

While the ostensible goals of Freemasonry are philanthropy and human development, the true goal is philosophic and ultimately religious. Masonic author, Albert Pike (Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction, 1859 -1891) sets the record straight in his authoritative Morals and Dogma of Freemasonry. According to Pike, following the system of the medieval Jewish Kabbalah (oral tradition), Freemasons are bound to no one particular religion, but worship the "Complete God." This "God," Pike points out, again according to the Kabbalah, is comprised of both good (expansive) and evil (restrictive) principles, personified by, God and the devil. It should be noted, however, that in Albert Pike's twisted mind, as put forth in his July 4, 1889 letter to the Masonic supreme councils, Lucifer is the expansive, pleasure loving "good" god, and Adonai (the Judeo-Christian God) is the restrictive, judgmental mean spirited deity. As Pike further explains to the Apprentice Mason, once again in his Morals and Dogma, "The pavement (of the Lodge), alternatively black and white, symbolizes the Good and Evil principles of the Egyptian and Persian creeds. It is the warfare between...Light and Darkness, Freedom and Despotism, Religious Liberty and the Arbitrary Dogmas of a Church that thinks for its votaries and whose Pontiff claims to be infallible..." In the final chapter of this book titled Prince of the Royal Secret Pike informs us, " The Evil is the Shadow of the Good and inseparable from it. The Divine Wisdom limits by equipoise the Omnipotence of the Divine Will or Power, and the result is Beauty or Harmony."

The "secret" then for the individual Freemason, following the Serpent's lie that, "You shall be as gods," is to work out for himself the balance or harmony of good and evil in his own life to achieve his own divine perfection. "Man is a God in the Making", Manly P.Hall, 33° The Lost Keys of Free Masonry

Collectively the external goal of Masonry is for an emancipated mankind to rebuild "Eden" without heed to the restrictive demands of the Creator and His established Church. The esoteric goal is to incorporate Lucifer into the definition of the "Complete God" that includes both good and evil, or the fusion of opposites, coincidentia opositorum. "In one instance we have the interlaced triangles, one black, the other white, the white triangle has its point up; the black triangle points down... The interlaced black and white triangles represent the forces of darkness and light, error and truth, ignorance and wisdom and good and evil; when properly placed they represent balance and harmony." Wes Cook 32° Vignettes in Masonry from the Royal Arch Masonry Magazine

* Pope Leo XIII: "The race of man, after its miserable fall from God, the Creator and giver of heavenly gifts, "through the envy of the devil," separated into two diverse and opposite parts, of which the one steadfastly contends for truth and virtue, the other for things which are contrary to virtue and truth. The one is the kingdom of God on earth, namely, the true Church of Jesus Christ; and those who desire from their heart to be united with it, so as to gain salvation, must of necessity serve God and His only begotten Son with their whole mind and with an entire will. The other is the kingdom of Satan, in whose possession and control are all whosoever follow the fatal example of their leader and our first parents, those who refuse to obey the divine and eternal law, and who have many aims of their own in contempt of God, and many aims also against God...At this period, the partisans of evil seem to be combining together, and to be struggling with united vehemence, led on or assisted by that strongly organized and widespread association called Freemasons." Humanum Genus: 1884

H.R.A