“Before my time” is very suggestive. It shows the God of Moses to be only a temporary substitute, like Brahmâ, the male, a substitute and an aspect of That which is immutable, and which, therefore, can take no part in the Days, or Nights, nor have any concern whatever with reäction or dissolution.
While the Eastern Occultists have seven modes of interpretation, the Jews have only four; namely, the real-mystical, the allegorical, the moral, and the literal or Pashut. The latter is the key of the exoteric Churches and not worth discussion. Here are several sentences, which, read in the first, or mystical key, show the identity of the foundations of construction in every Scripture. They are given in Isaac Myer's excellent book on the Kabalistic works, which he seems to have well studied. I quote verbatim.
“B'raisheeth barah elohim ath hashama' yem v'ath haa'retz, i.e., ‘In the beginning the God(s) created the heavens and the earth’; (the meaning of which is;) the six (Sephiroth of Construction),[600] over which B'raisheeth stands, all belong Below. It created six, (and) on these stand (exist) all Things. And those depend upon the seven forms of the Cranium up to the Dignity of all Dignities. And the second 'Earth' does not come into calculation, therefore it has been said: ‘And from it (that Earth) which underwent the curse; came it forth.’ ... ‘It (the Earth) was without form and void; and darkness was over the face of the Abyss, and the Spirit of Elohim ... was breathing (me'racha'pheth, i.e., hovering, brooding over, moving, ...) over the waters.’ Thirteen depend on thirteen (forms) of the most worthy Dignity. Six thousand years hang (are referred to) in the first six words. The seventh (thousand, the millennium) above it (the cursed Earth) is that [pg 402]which is strong by Itself. And it was rendered entirely desolate during twelve hours (one ... day ...). In the thirteenth, It (the Deity) shall restore them ... and everything shall be renewed as before; and all those six shall continue.”[601]
The “Sephiroth of Construction” are the six Dhyân Chohans, or Manus, or Prajâpatis, synthesized by the seventh “B'raisheeth,” the First Emanation, or Logos, and who are called, therefore, the Builders of the Lower or Physical Universe, all belonging Below. These Six [6-pointed star with middle dot], whose essence is of the Seventh, are the Upâdhi, the Base or Fundamental Stone, on which the Objective Universe is built, the Noumenoi of all things. Hence they are, at the same time, the Forces of Nature; the Seven Angels of the Presence; the Sixth and Seventh Principles in Man; the spirito-psycho-physical Spheres of the Septenary Chain, the Root Races, etc. They all “depend upon the Seven Forms of the Cranium” up to the Highest. The “Second ‘Earth’ does not come into calculation,” because it is no Earth, but the Chaos, or Abyss of Space, in which rested the Paradigmatic, or Model Universe, in the Ideation of the Over-Soul, brooding over it. The term “Curse” is here very misleading, for it means simply Doom or Destiny, or that fatality which sent it forth into the objective state. This is shown by that “Earth,” under the “Curse,” being described as “without form and void,” in whose abysmal depths the “Breath” of the Elohim, or collective Logoi, produced, or so to say photographed, the first Divine Ideation of the things to be. This process is repeated after every Pralaya before the beginnings of a new Manvantara, or Period of sentient individual Being. “Thirteen depend on thirteen Forms,” refers to the thirteen Periods, personified by the thirteen Manus, with Svâyambhuva, the fourteenth—13, instead of 14, being an additional veil—those fourteen Manus who reign within the term of a Mahâ Yuga, a Day of Brahmâ. These thirteen-fourteen of the objective Universe depend on the thirteen-fourteen paradigmatic, ideal Forms. The meaning of the “six thousand Years” which “hang in the first six Words,” has again to be sought in the Indian Wisdom. They refer to the primordial six (seven) “Kings of Edom,” who typify the Worlds, or Spheres, of our Chain, during the First Round, as well as the primordial men of this Round. They are the septenary pre-Adamic First Root-Race, or they who existed before the Third, Separated Race. As they were Shadows, and senseless, for they had not yet eaten of the [pg 403] fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, they could not see the Parzuphim, or “Face could not see Face”; that is to say, primeval men were “unconscious.” “Therefore, the primordial (seven) Kings died,” i.e., were destroyed.[602] Now, who are these Kings? They are the Kings who are the “Seven Rishis, certain (secondary) divinities, Indra [Shakra], Manu, and the Kings his Sons [who] are created and perish at one period” as Vishnu Purâna tells us.[603] For the seventh “thousand,” which is not the millennium of exoteric Christianity, but that of Anthropogenesis, represents both the “Seventh Period of Creation,” that of physical man, according to Vishnu Purâna, and the Seventh Principle, both macrocosmic and microcosmic, and also the Pralaya after the Seventh Period, the Night, which has the same duration as the Day, of Brahmâ. “It was rendered entirely desolate during twelve hours.” It is in the Thirteenth (twice six and the synthesis) that everything shall be restored, and the “six shall continue.”
Thus, the author of the Qabbalah remarks quite truly that:
Long before his [Ibn Gebirol's] time ... many centuries before the Christian era, there was in Central Asia a “Wisdom Religion”, fragments of which subsequently existed among the learned men of the archaic Egyptians, the ancient Chinese, Hindûs, etc.... [And that] the Qabbalah most likely originally came from Âryan sources, through Central Asia, Persia, India and Mesopotamia, for from Ur and Haran came Abraham and many others, into Palestine.[604]
Such was also the firm conviction of C. W. King, the author of The Gnostics and Their Remains.
Vâmadeva Modelyar describes the coming Night most poetically. Though it is given in Isis Unveiled, it is worthy of repetition.
Strange noises are heard, proceeding from every point.... These are the precursors of the Night of Brahmâ; dusk rises at the horizon, and the Sun passes away behind the thirteenth degree of Makara [the tenth sign of the Zodiac], and will reach no more the sign of the Mîna [the Zodiacal sign Pisces, or the Fish]. The Gurus of the Pagodas, appointed to watch the Râshichakram [Zodiac], may now break their circle and instruments, for they are henceforth useless.
Gradually light pales, heat diminishes, uninhabited spots multiply on the earth, the air becomes more and more rarefied; the springs of waters dry up, the great rivers see their waves exhausted, the ocean shows its sandy bottom and plants die. Men and animals decrease in size daily. Life and motion lose their force, planets can hardly gravitate in space; they are extinguished one by one, like a lamp which the hand of the Chokra [servant] neglects to replenish. Sûrya [the Sun] flickers and goes out, matter falls into Dissolution [Pralaya], and Brahmâ merges back into [pg 404]Dyaus, the Unrevealed God, and, his task being accomplished, he falls asleep. Another Day is passed, Night sets in, and continues until the future Dawn.