Lurianic Kabbalah
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As well as the Tzimtzum, Luria introduced into the Kabbalistic cosmology an extra world, "Adam Kadmon" or "Primordial Man" (comparable to the Anthropos of Gnosticism and Manichaeism) above the world of Atzilut. Adam Kadmon generally signifies the manifest attributes of the transcendent Godhead or En Sof; although paradxically it is also the first finite world. (Such inconsistancies as this one are common among esoteric teachers and indicates either that they did not succeed in fully integrating their transcendent cosmic gnosis into a coherent system of understanding, or that their teachings were distorted by their followers later on). |
This Highest World, Adam Kadmon, is made up of the Divine Name
YHVH ("Yahweh") which serves as the archetype for all the other worlds
and sefirot:
Yod Hokmah Male Atzilut Divine He Binah Female Beriah Archangelic Yod next seven Sefirot Male Yetzirah Angelic He Malkhut Female Assiah Material |
In the Lurianic system, each of the Adam Kadmonic Worlds are characterised by Divine Names; more specifically variants on the name YodHeVauHe (or YHVH), which is considered in Judaism to be the Name of God. This fourlettered name is called the "Tetragrammaton" (Latin: "Four Letters") by occultists, who used it at great length as a means of protection in their magical rituals, and as a symbol of correspondences in their philosophies.
As might be expected, the Kabbalists went into great detail elaborating upon the permutations and variant spellings of this, and other Divine Names, in a fashion strongly reminiscent of the mantras or seed syllables and sounds of Hindu and Buddhist Tantra. In Tantra, mantras are not only Sanskrit letters, but also the essential archetypal principles or original Vibrations behind all manifest existence. A central aspect of Tantra is the intoning of these mantras, through which consciousness is elevated to the state of existence the mantra represents. Both the influential but controversial prophetic Spanish Kabbalist Abraham Abulafia (1240after 1280) and Isaac Luria taught meditations on the letters of Divine Names, which they called Yichudim ("Unities") because they involved uniting various aspects of the Divine Name, and by doing so uniting the self with God.
The Tetragrammaton is thought by Jews to represent the very essence of the Godhead. To identify the World of Adam Kadmon with the Tetragrammaton therefore is like saying that it represents or expresses the essence of the Godhead. We could say it represents the original seedvibration, the first mantric expression, of the Absolute. The following summarises the Tetragrammatonic correspondences in tabular form:
As part of Adam Kadmon there emanted various Divine Worlds, which Luria described Anthropomorphically as the Worlds of Seeing, Hearing, Smell, and Speech.
This curious anthropomorphisation is due to Luria's reliance on the Zohar, a massive and impossibly obscure and symbolic work that has, by dint of its very obscurity, become the "Bible" of Kabbalah.
These worlds formed the basis of the subsequent partzufim of the
world of Atzilut
Adam Kadmonic Tetragrammatons Corresponding Worlds (Divine Names) Sefirot and Partzuf Seeing (72) YOD HEH VYV HY Hokhmah Abba "Father" Hearing (63) YOD HY VAV HY Binah Imma "Mother" Smell (45) YOD HA VAV HA Tifaret Ze'er "Yahweh" Speech (52) YOD HH VAV HH Malkhut Nukvah "Bride" |
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