The Cabala Of The Jews.

course of time become holy and pure , ancl be assimilated to the brightest of the emanations from Or Haensoph . God , it was said , is all in all ; everything is part of the divine essence , with a growing , or perceptive , or Teflective power , one or all , and by that which has one all may be acquired . A stone may become a plant ; a plant , a beast ; a beast , a man ; a man , an angel ; an angel , a creator .

" This kind of belief , which was derived also from the Alexandrian Platonists , led to that spiritual cabalism b y which such Christians as Reuchlin and . Agrippa profited . It connected them by a strong link with the divine essence , ancl they , feeling perhaps more distinctly than their neighbours that they were partakers of the divine nature , and might , by a striving after purity of soul and bodywin their way to a state of spiritual happiness and power

, , cut themselves off from all communion with the sensuality that had become the scandal of the Church of Rome , and keenly perceived , as they expressed strongly , their sense of the degraded habits of the priests . It was in this way that the Christian Cabalists assisted in the labours of the Reformation .

" Little more has to be said about their theory , and that relates of the Four Cabalistical Worlds . These were placed in the four spaces between the upper sephiroth . Between the first and second was placed Aziluth , the outflowing , which contained the purest beings , the producers of the rest . Between the second ancl third sephiroth was the world Briah , or the thrones , containing spirits less pure , but still not material . They were classed into wheels , lightnings , lionsburning spiritsangelschildren of Godcherubim . Their rince

, , , , p was called Metatron . The world in the next interspace , called Jezireh , angels , approached more nearly to a material form ; and the fourth , Asiah , was made wholly material . From this point density increases till our world is reached . Asiah is the abode of the Klippoth , or material spirits striving against God . They travel through the air , their bodies are of dense air , incorruptible , and they have power to work in the material world . With Catoriel , Adam Belial ,

Esau , Aganiel , TJsiel , Ogiel , Thomiel , Theumiel , for captains , they fi ght in two armies under their chiefs Zamiel and Lilith . Their enemies are the angels , who contend against them with two armies , led by Metatron ancl Sandal phon . Lilith is the begetter of the powers striving against light . " The nature of man ' s soul , said Cabalists , is threefold—vegetative , perceptiveintellectual—each embracing each . It emanates from the upper sephiroth

, , is composed of the pure elements—for the four elements , either in their pure and spiritual or their gross form , enter into all things—is expansive , separates after death , so that the parts return each to its own place , but reunite to praise God on the sabbaths and new moons . With each soul are sent into the world a guardian and an accusing angel . " Nowas the creative light runs round each upper world before coming to

, ours , it comes to us charged with supernal influences , and such an idea lies at the foundation of cabalistical magic . By what secret to have power over this line of communication with superior worlds it is for practical cabalism to discover .

" The secret consisted chiefl y in the use of names . God , it was said , gave to all things their names ; He could have given no name that was not mystically fit ; every such name , therefore , is a word containing divine power , and especially affecting that thing , person , or spirit to which it belongs . The Scripture tells us that there are names written in heaven ; why , it was said , should they be written there if they be useless . Through the knowledge of

such divine names , it is affirmed , Moses overcame the sorcerers of E gypt , Elias brought fire from heaven , Daniel closed the mouths of lions . But of all names by which wonders can be wrought , the Mirific Word of Words ( here we come to the main thought of Reuchlin ' s book , and to the central topic of the oratory of Cornelius ) was the consealed name of God—the Schem-hammaphorash . Whoever knows the true pronunciation of the name Jehovah—the