Note: [1]
All the great religions of the world teach that the phenomenal Universe in which we live came into existence through the power of the Logos, the divine Word. The Bible says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was the life, and the life was the light of men.” A word is an act by which a thought is expressed, and each thought has a certain meaning or sense. Expressed in modern scientific language the above sentence may read: “All things in the visible universe are the outward manifestations or symbols of the creative thoughts which they represent, and consequently the expressions of the ideas which these thoughts contain.” Man is a God and creator in his own little world. He does not ‘create’ things out of nothing; but at first the desire to express something arises in him, he ‘draws’[2] an idea from his own inner self, this idea forms itself into a concrete thought, and this thought, embodying his idea, he expresses in language or in an act. Thus we have in man a representation on a little scale of what takes place in the great world on a large scale, and we can form a conception of what took place at the creation of the world (and still takes place everywhere in nature) without having been there personally ourselves. Religious teachings are seen to contain deep scientific truths, if properly understood. The whole of the manifested world is the language by which the universal infinite Spirit expresses His thoughts. The expression of its qualities is the language by which each thing in nature speaks to us; each mineral, plant and animal says by its very presence: “I am,” and if we understand its qualities, we know what the thing is. Each thing speaks to us by manifesting its being, each thing says to us in its own language: “I am!” It tells us what it is by exhibiting itself as that what it actually is.
Speech in its mystic sense is sound; sound is a manifestation of life, the first attribute of Ākāsha, or ‘spiritual ether.’ Language is sound expressed in letters; each state of existence is a letter in the divine alphabet. Our language is composed of sounds represented in twenty-four letters, or symbols, which also indicate the twenty-five elements or Taṭṭwas, of which the material body of this universe is composed. Shankarāchārya in his Taṭṭva Boḍha [Tattva Bodha], shows how from Akāsha [Ākāśa], or manifested space, originated Vāyu (substance), from Vāyu Tejas (Light), from Tejas Āpas (Water), from Āpas Pṛṭhivī (Earth), and that from the ṭāmasic portion of these five Ṭaṭṭwas originate the twenty-five compound elements, forming the sṭhūla sharīra [sthūla-śarīra], or material body of this world.
The twenty-five letters of our alphabet correspond to these twenty-five compound elements of Shakaracharya [Śaṅkarāchārya]. The great mystic, Jacob Boehme says: “From the A originate the twenty-five letters.” The five vowels represent the five creative powers in the universe. In the Bhagavad-Gītā Kṛṣhṇa, as the representative of the Word, tells Arjuna: “I am the A and the O” (the Alpha and Omega); the beginning and the end, the infinite universal Spirit and its manifestation in form.” In Hebrew the word Jehovah is the name of the universal Creator, the dark God, or Karma. The word is composed of the five vowels, to which is added the H as the symbol of the universal creative breath of life.
H
J E O U A.
If the numbers represented by these letters in Hebrew are counted cabalistically, we obtain the so-called ‘Ludalfian number,’ known to every architect as indicating the relation of the diameter of a circle to its circumference. Thus “Jehovah” is the Architect of the material world (Joseph the carpenter in the Bible). But as yet the world is without light, and the soul of man without love and wisdom, without real self-knowledge, the redeemer. If we now insert within the word Jehova the letter Schin, which symbolises fire, there arises within the centre the light of wisdom from the fiery spark of divine love, and instead of ‘Jehova’ we have now the word ‘Jehoshua,’ the origin of the word Jesus, meaning the spiritual light and life of the soul. (S. John I, 4).[3]
The sound of each letter, if properly pronounced, contains a great spiritual power, and the nature of those powers is even indicated by the form of the letters in the Latin alphabet.[4]
In the shape of A its character is indicated. From the one invisible point (the Absolute) arise two branches, representing the division of light and darkness or spirit and matter. The two lines ⋀ may be imagined to extend into infinitude; they enclose nothing. A, if properly pronounced comes from the centre (the heart); it is a representative of Ākāsha, or unlimited space.
E gives us the feeling of elevation, locomotion, extension, and indicates the existence of three different planes.
I (ee) penetrates into the depths like an arrow; it goes to the heart. Boehme says: The I is the centre of supreme love and the O the centre of the conceivable Word in the Godhead.” In it is the power of the Ego, the knowledge of Self. In it is the expression of Will and the manifestation of Individuality.
O is expressive of comprehension, encompassment, or form.
U (oo) represents fullness, profundity, a vessel (the soul) open at the top and capable of receiving the light and the grace of God.
Boehme says: “The five vowels are the holy name of God in His aspect as sanctity; the other letters indicate and express the character of the name of God (the All) contained in nature. The five vowels also represent the holy trinity; the ⋀ out-breathing of the Spirit, the O the retention, the ⋁ the out-breathing of the divine breath.”
The Word in its triune aspect is not anything different from God (the All). God is not a wizard, who by pronouncing a magical word created a world in some unaccountable manner. God Himself is the Word that speaks itself out. In its triune aspect it represents itself as a trinity: AOU or father, son and spirit (will, thought and expression). From this Word the Macrocosm (M) is born. The Word as a trinity AOU, in its manifestation M, constitutes with this letter the sacred quaternary, the number of truth, the AOUM.
Franz Hartmann, M. D.
Notes
[1] The Five Creative Powers in the Universe and the Inner Life. Franz Hartmann, M.D. The Theosophist 30, no. 3 (December 1908), 250-252. {This article was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than minor typos, by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025}
[2] In the German language the word schoepfen (to create) means to draw something from some receptacle, like, for instance, drawing water from a well.
[3] See: F. Hartmann. Jehoshua the prophet of Nazareth. T. P. S. (London).
[4] The vowels ought to be pronounced as they arc in Latin, Italian, German, etc. A as in dark, E as in bed, I as in stick, O as in more, U as the double o in fool.