Light Unraveling Chaos or LIGHT UNSCRAPPING CHAOS
André Savoret
This phrase, which constitutes the title of a famous alchemical work, could also serve as the title and summary of most ancient cosmogonies. It is true that it would be necessary to agree once and for all on what is this "light" and on what is this "chaos" which, under many names, Bahu, Erebos, Tiamat, figures at the top of the chronologies symbolic of most peoples of antiquity.
The cosmogonic symbols are interesting in more ways than one, they are worth, whatever the moderns think of them, the creations of our current philosophies, and are, in particular, much closer to the essential truth than the "systems of the world". on a more or less scientific basis, science, as it is understood today, being the domain of the changeable, the uncertain, the limited.
The Judeo-Christian tradition undoubtedly contains the aspect of eternal truth most accessible to our understanding.
It is therefore not without interest to seek to penetrate their forms, to commune with their ever-living spirit.
Based on the work of Fabre d'Olivet, without making us a blind slave to it, we are going to try to throw some light on the cosmogonic principles described by Moses. Of course, we will not say everything. We do not claim to "reveal" abstruse secrets. We will not say everything, for three major reasons. The first is that we do not imagine ourselves to know everything; the second is that true principles cannot be described as phenomena; the third, it is the reason of convenience which orders us to avoid the proper word, when this one is likely to put on the way of certain practical secrets, always dangerous for those whose moral forces or the will are not in relation to the extent of their curiosity; moreover, to define is to dogmatize,
What follows must therefore be taken as the results of personal meditations, with all the possibilities of error that they entail.
The category of readers that this kind of research interests or fascinates must remember this. If, here and there, an idea agrees with the result of their own research, or confirms some still vague intuition, our goal will be achieved.
It is for this category of readers, walking on one of the paths that lead to the Way, that we want to recall some general directives for this order of research.
First, don't be in too much of a rush. Feverish haste leads straight to error. The over-excited imagination can play many ugly tricks. Then, since the sacred books contain, not only a metaphysics, but also an ethics, it is necessary, absolutely necessary, not to disregard one for the benefit of the other; otherwise, the resulting imbalance would irremediably distort the delicate functioning of the intellectual sphere. Remember that the bow is not made to stay taut, as Kong-Tseu wisely said. Finally, don't imagine that the real secrets can be written down. “What I know best, I know only for myself,” said Goethe; he was right. It is only by intuition that certain lights become sensible to us; the mind, representative of Destiny in the intellectual sphere, acts like the latter, in a mechanical way, rigidly pushing to their logical consequences the principles which human intuition has received. But it is impossible for it to lay down the principles and it must not be allowed to usurp a role which it cannot assume. The force that makes plants grow is not the one that specifies them as such. But it is impossible for it to lay down the principles and it must not be allowed to usurp a role which it cannot assume. The force that makes plants grow is not the one that specifies them as such. But it is impossible for it to lay down the principles and it must not be allowed to usurp a role which it cannot assume. The force that makes plants grow is not the one that specifies them as such.
The true path is that of simplification, of the unification of the self, making the heart a tranquil mirror, capable of correctly reflecting the light from Above.
Nothing is impossible for the truly disinterested seeker, who stands in humility and charity. If one understands that man possesses only what is given to him and is therefore only a useless servant, humility becomes easy. If one realizes that Love is the key of keys, true charity can be born. He who grasps the truth of the above, and whose good will is ready to translate it into the gray everyday reality, he will soon reap the fruits of his perseverance. Isn't it written: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God!" »
The author of The Hebrew Language Restored , thought that the cosmogony properly so called, of Moses, was contained in the first 10 chapters of the Sepher Bereshith or Genesis, considering the first as the tenth of his theogony, and the tenth as the first of his geology. Moses not having left us his theogony, we are forced to locate approximately the beginning of the Sepher, in order to realize whether it is a question of the primitive creation or of a secondary creation, the interest of which results above all from the fact that we belong to him.
We have strong reasons to lean towards this last hypothesis, the very fact of the resemblances of this cosmogony with the Phoenician and Assyrian cosmogonies, the doubtless implicit, but in no way explicit notion of the fall of the angels, the omission, in the account of creation, of that of the angelic world, are so many presumptions in his favour.
It is in this sense that we will interpret the words of Fabre d'Olivet ( Theodoxy Universelle ): “I tell you that the development of the Universe is a resurrection”.
If the cosmogony is enclosed in the sacred decade of the first 10 chapters of the Sepher, it appeared to us that the first 10 verses, decade of this decade, contained all the principles. Whether or not the division into verses is due to Ezra matters little. The important thing is that this division presents itself to us as intentional.
These ten verses represent us, grouped around the Central Principle ALEIM (Him-the-Gods), 12 principles or modifications of principles whose names are: ThEUM, MaIM, HOSheK, RUaH-ALEIM, AOR, IOM, LILE, ShaMaIM, RaQIWha , IMIM, IBéShE, AReTs.
These principles are far from having the same importance; some are only a particular aspect, a certain phase of development or manifestation of others; if the name "principles" can be left to them for the convenience of language, it would not suit them in strict justice.
A first classification is therefore necessary, we will establish it as follows:
Primary principles, pertaining to theogony or at least to primitive creation:
ALEIM the Divinity conceived through Angelity,
ThEUM the primordial Abyss, passive source of "possibilities",
RUaH-ALEIM: the Word-Light, the creative power of the Most High, considered in itself, as. Word of IEVE, or through angelhood.
Principles on which will be exercised the creative effort, or, to speak like Fabre d'Olivet, the work of resurrection:
MaIM: primitive waters, ThEUM specification,
HOSheK: the dark fire, born from the fall of the archangel.
Particular principles of creation described by Moses, with the aim of repairing the state of things created by the revolt of the angels:
AOR: the verbal Light, manifestation of RUaH-ALEIM in this particular creation. He is the Agent exerting his action on maim-hoshek, already named, that is to say on the Darkened Waters, will oppose as IOM (day) to HoSheK, reacting as LILE (night). From this struggle will be born
1° Of MaIM (waters), separated from darkness:
ShaMaIM: spiritualized waters, source of spiritual existences,
RaQIWha: the medium or ethereal waters,
IMIM: the seas or lower waters.
2° And of HOSheK (the darkness separated from the waters):
IBeShE: aridity, origin of:
AReTs: the “earth”, source of material forms.
This distinction made, we will be able to read with more fruit the translation of the first ten verses, pointing out however that a translation of this order is illusory, and that the term paraphrase would be more suitable:
In principle, ALEIM decreed the potential existence of the heavens (ShaMaIM) and the earth (AReTs) (1).
Now, the earth was still only power of being, in germ in another power of being (2), and darkness (centralized fire) was on the face of the abyss (indefinite potential existence), in which the centralizing energy of darkness and the expansive motility of the waters mutually canceled each other out, but the divine Spirit (RUaH-ALEIM), the fertilizing breath, was already exercising its activity on the face of the waters (3).
For ALEIM manifested his will, saying (4) “Let there be Light! And, already, she was. This Light, intelligible and insensible, is the aspect which the creative Word takes on for us; this intelligible light can become perceptible, in time, passing from its eternal immutability to its creative manifestation, (day), then reintegrating itself then into its primitive state, once the principles decreed, deposited in the cosmic sphere. It is this very movement of light that determines the modes of duration, without its eternity being affected.
ALEIM, considering this light as good (manifested with a view to good), opposed it to darkness. Its role was to change the darkness by dissolving it, by illuminating it to make it participate again in its own nature, after having separated it from the waters.
And ALEIM characterized the light, in its manifestation, by the name of enjoying, (cycle of realization of a divine decree, manifestation of the cosmic Word) (5). Then, he characterized darkness by the name of night (LILE): negating manifestation (6). So was, from past to future, from beginning to end (7) the first day (first phase of the redemptive work). Then ALEIM manifested his will, saying: there will be a rarefied, ethereal space, (RaQlWha), in the center, (it is not a question of the geometric center), of the universal waters; and he operated a movement of hierarchical differentiation within the waters.
And ALEIM carried out the ipseity of the ethereal rarefaction, in order to differentiate the waters according to this middle term, this movement took place between the waters which grew heavier, condensed, and those which became lighter, dilated, by relation to this ethereal rarefaction. And so it was.
Then ALEIM characterized the ethereal space by the name of skies (8): glorified waters. So was, from beginning to end, the second day (second phase of the work).
Still manifesting his will, ALEIM said: “an internal and irresistible tendency will push towards a determined place, the waters inferior to those which constitute the heavens. Thus, aridity will become sensitive” (9).
And ALEIM characterized the aridity (internal centralized fire) of the name of earth (AReTs), compacted element (10); and the gravitational movement of the lower waters, he characterized it by the name of seas (IMIM): universal aqueous manifestation (11), fluidic windings and unwindings.
We have little left to add to the above. The reader will be able to draw his conclusions without our help, if there is help (12).
Already, in this cosmogony, we see the Word, not in his function of Creator, in the most absolute sense of the word, but in that of Redeemer.
His function as Creator belongs to the Theogony, which we do not have to concern ourselves with, fortunately for our limited view.
He exercises this redemptive function by separating the waters from darkness, then by creating a mixed universe of which ADaM, the universal man, must be the crowning glory. He is indeed there, as Saint John says, "the Light which seeks to illuminate the darkness, but darkness seeks to repel,” for Lucifer would rather rule in shadow than serve in light.
The presentation of Moses, although there is no direct question of the creation of the angels and the fall, of a part of them, only really becomes clear if we take into account these two facts. It is therefore with good reason that the work of the six days can be called a “resurrection”.
And it is the Word who is the agent of this resurrection, as he is that of the resurrection of fallen Adamity.
"And the Word was the life, and the life was the light of men". Resurrection and Life”
NOTES
1. The verb BaRA, which has been translated as “to create” does not necessarily have this meaning. Here it expresses a transformative activity, operating on a pre-existing element. The sign of all internal virtuality, B, forms this verb, combined with the radical AR, which we will discuss later.
2. Indeed, the “earth” was in germ in the darkness, and these had to manifest themselves as night by separating from the waters, so that it could be born.
3. The waters, in the primordial sense, merge with the ThEUM, the Abyss. In the restricted sense, corresponding to the work which Moses retraces, they are distinct from it; they form the portion of this virgin substance, captured by the fallen angels, fathers of darkness. The very name of these: HOSh-eK, bears on the same radical as that of the tempter Na-HaSh; this should be considered carefully. Fabre d'Olivet seems to have confused, in his translation Na-HaSh and SaTaN, the tempter and the perverted magnetism over and by which he reigns.
(4) saying... The verb AMoR is used by Moses concurrently with the preposition ath, to mark the institution of a thing in principle, in potency; On the contrary, he uses the verb QaRA, omitting this preposition, each time it is a question of an effective realization, of a passage of power into action.
(5) IOM is formed by IM (sea) illuminated by the sign of the Word: O. It is the vibration of the waters and their illumination.
6. LILE (night), is the movement operated within darkness by the luminous manifestation. Darkness reacting under the influence of light therefore undergoes a profound modification. If we limit ourselves to appearances, we will see a greater evil, something like the passage from indifference to hatred, but essentially it is however a greater good... The movement, was it reactive , is always a victory of life. Night is therefore a modification of darkness, inversely proportional to this modification of light that Moses calls day.
7. From beginning to end... It is remarkable that Moses uses a contrary expression: V'IEI WheReB, V'IEI BoQeR: “and was evening and was morning”. The profound reason for this strange march lies in the symbolic meaning of the terms used: WheReB, the Erebos of the Greeks, means evening in the sense of darkness; BoQeR indicates, on the contrary, a gradual release of light. Each of the days or light cycles described by Moses constitutes a new stage in the victorious struggle of the Word-Light against the infernal Darkness. Each of these periods begins in a relatively dark stage compared to its end. The sentence of Moses therefore means: "and was a dark starting point, and was a more luminous end", (of such and such a cosmic period),
8. Heavens (ShaMaIM): Kunrath had foreseen the formation of this term, which Fabre d'Olivet expounded: ShaM-MaIM: the glorified, sublimated, illuminated waters, In a certain sense, we see that the heavens (once formed ) merge with the firmament (RaQlWha, the ethereal orb). However, Moses establishes a certain distinction between them... The two great "luminaries" (which have been taken too easily for the sun and the moon, which are only their symbols) are placed in the "firmament of the heavens". This cannot be without reason.
9. Aridity (IBeShE)... The hieroglyphic formation of this word can lead us to conceive what tenebrous fire is the proper element of HOSheK.
10. The stem of the word AReTs is the same as that of AOR (the light of the Word). Terminated by the involutionary sign Ts, and deprived of the very sign of the Verb (O), this word expresses well the manifestation of the energy proper to the fallen archangelity. Well thought out, it tells us the cause of his fall, and what kind of power is still his.
11. IMIM, the seas, receiving the sign of the Word, become IOMIM: the days. The key to universal redemption is revealed here.
12. Let us only note that in the primitive creation, we could undoubtedly find, with their broadest meaning, the principles stated above, except, of course, Darkness. There is no creation possible without an agent, whether it is called "the creative Word", RUaH-ALEIM, Pneuma or the Eternal Light, there is no creation possible without a means, which she is called “the Virgin of Light”; Abyssal Waters (MaIM-ThEUM); prima materia or universal substantiality. The vibration or illumination of the Waters is the great mystery, the how of which absolutely escapes human understanding. To say that everything is "vibrations" explains nothing; to say that there is neither matter nor spirit, but only vibrations or vortices, is inconsistent: there is no vacuum vortex in the vacuum, two things are absolutely necessary: a plasma capable of vortexing and an independent impulse, capable of causing the vortex. The same can be said of any vibration which always supposes a vibrating body and a vibratory impulse; the best image of the animation of the Universe - but how crude - would be that of a violin string, (the very tension of which already supposes an operation of the mind), which the artist's finger makes vibrate with all its harmonics. We feel that to make vibration in itself something independent of the artist and the string, and above all to make it the origin of the artist and the string (this is seriously called the "polarization of the neutral element in positive and negative"), this is to completely misunderstand the significance of the symbol. There is no such polarization except within the waters themselves. All the systems that speak to us of the polarization of the Unique therefore do not go beyond this notion and disregard the Agent, considered in its primordial independence, in its essential activity.