Geometry of Genesis I

The story of Genesis chapter I can be read as a geometric meditation in the following way.  First get out your compass and prepare to draw some circles.

We follow Aryeh Kaplan's lead on reading sacred texts in the imperative so as to treat them as meditative verses, which he used to give an interesting translation of Sepher Yetzirah.  All verbs are given in present tense, since we want to understand the creation story as if it were taking place in front of us with our geometric tools.


The word simply translated "God" is actually "Elohim" in the original Hebrew text of Genesis.  But the word "Elohim" has the "-im" suffix, making it plural.  Esoteric traditions understand the "Elohim" to be a rank of spiritual beings who inhabit the Sun and hold the knowledge of the geometric laws of creation underlying the forms of the physical world.  When reading the following rendering of Genesis I, please remember that this is to be understood.


To make this into a meditation, take your compass and a blank sheet of paper, and draw a circle to represent the Divine Monad as the center of the process.  Then for each of the 6 Days of active creation  you will draw another circle as shown below.  Recite the text as you work through the construction process.

Begin Meditation:

Before the Beginning (Resheit), the ineffable One existed without a second.

Berasheit

Day One

In the beginning the Elohim created the heaven and the earth.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the abyss. And the Spirits of the Elohim are vibrating upon the face of the waters.

And the Elohim are saying, Let there be light: and now there is light.

And the Elohim are seeing the light, that it is good: and the Elohim are dividing the light from the darkness.

And the Elohim are calling the light Day, and the darkness they are calling Night. And the evening and the morning are Day One.

Day Two

And the Elohim are saying, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

And the Elohim are making the firmament, and dividing the waters which are under the firmament from the waters which are above the firmament: and it is so.

And the Elohim are calling the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning are Day Two.

Day Three

And the Elohim are saying, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it is so.

And the Elohim are calling the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters they are calling Seas: and the Elohim are seeing that is good.

And the Elohim are saying, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it is so.

And the earth is bringing forth grass, and herb yielding seed after its kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed is in itself, after its kind: and the Elohim are seeing that it is good.

And the evening and the morning are Day Three.

Day Four

And the Elohim are saying, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it is so.

And the Elohim are making two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: they are making the stars also.

And the Elohim are setting them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and the Elohim are seeing that it is good.

And the evening and the morning are Day Four.

Day Five

And the Elohim are saying, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

And the Elohim are creating great whales, and every living creature that moves, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and the Elohim are seeing that it is good.

And the Elohim are blessing them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

And the evening and the morning are Day Five.

Day Six

And the Elohim are saying, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after their kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after their kind: and it is so.

And the Elohim are making the beast of the earth after their kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps upon the earth after their kind: and the Elohim are seeing that it is good.

And the Elohim are saying, We are making humanity in our imagination, as likeness of us: and letting them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.

So the Elohim are creating humanity in their imagination, in the imagination of the Elohim they are creating humanity; male and female they are creating them.

And the Elohim are blessing them, and the Elohim are saying unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.

And the Elohim are saying, Behold, I am giving you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food.

And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creeps upon the earth, wherein there is life, we have given every green herb for food: and it is so.

And the Elohim are seeing everything that they are making, and, behold, it is very good. And the evening and the morning are Day Six.

Day Seven

Thus the heavens and the earth are becoming finished, and all the host of them.

And on Day Seven, the Elohim are finishing their work which they are making; and they are resting on Day Seven from all their work which they are making.

End Meditation

There is no circle drawn on the Seventh Day, as this is the Shabbat, the Day of Rest.  

Notice how the emanation of the six circles around the central circle proceeds in diametric pairings.  This is similar to the description of the creation of the Cube of Space as described in the Sepher Yetzirah.  It tells of an extension of a central point into the six directions of space, and their order is Above, Below, East, West, North, South.  These are the first six Doubles in the Hebrew alphabet.  Finally there is Tav, described as the "Palace of Holiness in the middle".  Tav is attribued to the planet Saturn, which is a fitting place for the Seventh Day.

More on this in future posts.