The Tarot of the Bohemians
Papus
Chapter 2
The Yod
The Yod, shaped like a comma or a dot, represents the principle or origin of all things.
The other letters of the Hebrew alphabet are all produced by different combinations of the letterYod1. The synthetic study of nature had led the ancients to conclude that one law only existed, and ruled all natural productions. This law, the basis of analogy, placed the Unity-principle at the origin of all things, and regarded them as the reflections at various degrees of this Unity-principle. Thus the Yod, which alone forms all the other lettes, and therefore all the words and all the phrases of the alphabet, was justly used as the image and representation of this Unity-principle, of which the profane had no knowledge.
Thus the law which presided over the creation of the Hebrew language is the same law that presided over the creation fo the Universe, and to know the one is to know he other, unreservedly. The Sepher Yetsirah2, one of the most ancient books of the Kabbalah, proves this fact.
Before proceeding any further, let us illustrate the definition which we have just given of the Yod by an example. The first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the aleph, is composed of four yods placed opposite to each other; the other letters are all formed on the same basis3.
The numerical value of the yod leads to other considerations. The Unity-principle, according to the doctrine of the Kabbalists, is also the Unity-end of beings and of things, so that eternity, from this point of view, is only and eternal present. The ancients used a dot in the center of a circle as the symbol of this idea, the representation of the Unity-principle (the dot) in the center of eternity (the circle, a line without beginning or end)4.
According to these demonstrations, the Unity is regarded as the whole, of which all createdbeings are only the constituent parts; just as the Unity-man is formed of an agglomeration of molecules, which compose his being.
The Kabbalah, therefore, places at the origin of all things the absolute assertion of the being by itself of the Ego-Unity, which is prepresented by the yod symbolically, and by the number 10. This number 10, representing the All-principle 1, with the Zero-nothing 0, well supplies the requsite conditions5.
1. See the Kabbala Denudata.
2. Translated into English by Dr. Wynn Westcott.
3. See the Kabbala Dendudata.
4. See Kircher, Oedipus Aegyptiacus;
See Lenain, La Science Kabbalistique;
See J. Dee, Monas Hieropgyphica.
5. See Saint-Martin, Des rapports qui existent entre Dieu, l'Homme et l'Univers.
See Lacuria, Harmonies de l'Etre exprimees les nombryes.