Adam Kadmon… The Absolute Deity, With The Kabalists, Has No Name.

Pike now discusses the Kabbalistic theory of cosmogony. It is a very long section, but I will do my best to break it down. In short, “The Absolute Deity, with the Kabalists, has no name.” However, in time “Adam Kadmon” was created, who was the first man. Honestly, this is pretty cool stuff. We now have an opportunity to learn the Kabalist view of creation through this Pike lesson; much more coming tomorrow. Please come back and share this important lesson with the Brethren:

This is the doctrine of the Kabalah, with which you will no doubt seek to make yourself acquainted, as to the Creation.

The Absolute Deity, with the Kabalists, has no name. The terms applied to Him are אור פּשוט, AOR PASOT, the Most Simple [or Pure] Light, “called, אין סוף, AYEN SOPH, or INFINITE, before any Emanation. For then there was no space or vacant place, but all was infinite Light.”

Before the Deity created any Ideal, any limited and intelligible Nature, or any form whatever, He was alone, and without form or similitude, and there could be no cognition or comprehension of Him in any wise. He was without Idea or Figure, and it is forbidden to form any Idea or Figure of Him, neither by the letter He (ה), nor by the letter Yōd (י), though these are contained in the Holy Name; nor by any other letter or point in the world.

But after He created this Idea [this limited and existing-in-intellection Nature, which the ten Numerations, SEPHIROTH or Rays are], of the Medium, the First Man ADAM KADMON, He descended therein, that, by means of this Idea, He might be called by the name TETRAGRAMMATON; that created things might have cognition of Him, in His own likeness.

When the Infinite God willed to emit what were to flow forth, He contracted Himself in the centre of His light, in such manner that that most intense light should recede to a certain circumference, and on all sides upon itself. And this is the first contraction, and termed צמצם Tsemsum.

אדם קדמון, ADAM KADMON, the Primal or First Man, is the first Aziluthic emanant from the Infinite Light, immitted into the evacuated Space, and from which, afterward, all the other degrees and systems had their beginnings. It is. called the Adam prior to all the first. In it are imparted ten spherical numerations; and thereafter issued forth the rectilinear figure of a man in his sephirothic decade, as it were the diameter of the said circles; as it were the axis of these spheres, reaching from their highest point to their lowest; and from it depend all the systems.

But now, as the Infinite Light would be too excellent and great to be borne and endured, except through the medium of this Adam Kadmon, its most Secret Nature preventing this, its illuminating light had again to emanate in streams out of itself, by certain apertures, as it were, like windows, and which are termed the ears, eyes, nostrils, and mouth.

The light proceeding from this Adam Kadmon is indeed but one; but in proportion to its remoteness from the place of out-flowing, and to the grades of its descent, it is more dense (Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma, 1871, p. 745-746).

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