Introduction to Primitive Cabalistic Science

It was only natural that the philosophy of numbers had to choose general formulas, through which it brought all sciences into comprehensible divisions common to them all, in order to compare and evaluate them against one another all the more easily. The formulas had to be symbolic and so precise that, at first glance, one obtained a sufficient explanation of the subjects peculiar to each science.

Pythagoras A Greek philosopher and mathematician (c. 570–495 BC) whose followers believed that "all is number." became so famous among his contemporaries through this teaching, and was so honored by posterity, that long after the time of Plato, praise was sung of him in the following verses:

With his mind he reached the gods; whatever Nature denied
to human sight, he drew in with the eyes of his heart.
original Latin: "Mente Deos adiit, Quidquid Natura negavit, Visibus humanis, oculis ea pectoris hausit."

The reduction of all objects to 1 by means of the number 3 was the foundation of the Pythagorean system of doctrine—or more accurately, the primitive Cabalistic The author uses "Gabalistisch," a variation of Cabalistic (Kabbalah), referring to ancient Jewish mystical traditions regarding the divine nature of numbers and letters. system. But to derive all diversities and eccentric modifications from the Unity through that same number 3, it was necessary for him to employ the opposite (or the oppositions), namely the number seven. From 1, the opposite was 7 — from 2, it was 8 — from 3, it was 9 — from 4, it was 10 — from 5, it was 11 — from 6, it was 12.