chapter is archetypal. In order to understand bet-

ter what this means, we must fall back on the concept of * creation ' as being the result of divine ideation. The first order of creation is the existence of the thought or plan of the Universe in the divine mind. As the potter has in his mind the thought and image of the vessel he is about to mould, so that which ultimately assumes shape and form in this world, exists first in the universal mind ; where it is — to our perceptions — " without form and void. "
88 THE ESOTERIC BASIS OF CHRISTIANITY
Bearing in mind what has already been said about the successive emanation of the three Logoi, we have now to enquire which of these is the creative power with which we are concerned in the first chapter. There is no difficulty in settling this
question. The Absolute, the ( J cannot 'create'.
lor there can be nothing relative to it. The first Logos also, the unmanifested Logos, is too near to absoluteness to be regarded in any sense as a creator. Indeed the term ' creator ' is really only applicable to the third Logos, who is the personal creator in all theogonies. But this personal creator, being the third person of the Trinity, is also the ' Son ', or the Heavenly Man — Adam-Kadmon, or in a later aspect, Jah-Hevah; and this Heavenly Man, or archetypal man, is the culminating creation of the first chapter. It is
therefore the second Logos, the f i which
is the creative power in the first chapter. If we want confirmation of this, we find it in the Hebrew word which is translated ' God ' in our Bibles. That word is ALHIM, and its numerical value is 3.1415, or the mathematical value for the ratio of diameter to circumference of a circle ; in accor- dance with our geometrical symbology.
We may quote again from the Book of Dzyan
in confirmation of what has been already said, and as a clue to what follows.
" For thus stands the eternal Nidilna (concate- nation of cause and effect).
' Darkness ', the boundless, or the no-number, Adi-NidAna SvabhSvat : —