Beginning students and Miners in this Art who believe gematria and “the use of the cabalists” to be a petty trap or an intellectual, time-wasting exercise would be utterly lost seeking the tremendous alchemical secrets contained in the Bible. Devoid a good Hebrew/English interlinear translation, we would not even be able to guess which passages in the translated versions to consider. This is made abundantly clear with the term Manna, translated as 'bread' in most modern tongues of the Authorized Version(s).


       Exodus 16 begins with Spiritual Israel traveling “unto the wilderness of Sin (seen).” This the proper name of a desert region has also been misconstrued as a state of transgression by relgionists adamant with literal English translations. The Hebrew in the Masoretic text is אל מדבר סין, el meedebar seen, which translates as “Toward or Unto the Wilderness of Sin.” The numeration of this phrase is 397. One important title for the first sphere, Kether, on the Tree is אור פנימי, aur penimi. It translates as 'Inner Light' and also equals 397. So, with the opening of chapter 16, the Qabalist author hints a journey inward for Spiritual Israel. Throughout chapter 16 ‘bread’ is mentioned several times. It is usually spelled להם, lechem. This spelling is the one used for the common baked bread for the table. Qabalistically its spelling and numeration have certain implications and the word is investigated under other definitions. The 'Bread of Heaven' and 'Manna,' however, take another spelling entirely, but it is still commonly translated as bread by linguists not familiar with the “use of the Qabalists.” This form is מן, MN, summing to 90. The sustenance for the inner Spirit is Manna and it equals the number of מים, mim, 'waters.' Manna was gathered as the “Dew of the Dawn” (a hint for East), and the substance sustained Spiritual Israel for forty years.


       Forty is the number of the Hebrew letter Mem, and Water. The Hebrew word Manna, written with different vowel points, also translates as a verb, 'to apportion.' The Israelites were instructed to apportion all that they gathered by omer, a unit of measure one-tenth of an ephah (one sphere out of ten on the Tree, perhaps?). In this manner, each would have the spiritual food necessary for the journey toward Inner Light. Common exoteric translations of the Bible by official religious or political personalities have inadvertently provided credence to the physical earthly dew, for actual laboratory alchemists at least, as a physical ingredient for the confection of the Philosophers’ Stone. Nothing of the sort is implied by those who would take the time to learn the Hebrew alphabet and its numeration, and then use this knowledge with gematria and the other “uses of the cabalists.”


       The journey inward leads us to the lightning flash and an inner vision of the raw substance Prima Materia. We then apportion part of that Sea of Awareness and encase it within our Glass Vessel. There we incubate the 'green fog' with the rechanneled reproductive energy that slowly turns the entrapped matter black, then white. If we have ardently desired union with inner Christ Consciousness long enough through studies, meditations and prayers, and we have correctly employed other inner operations in the Alchemical Art, we may wait most confidently on Our Lord’s Grace. He and He alone turns the Matter red in His own good time. He and He alone gives us the inner vision of the First Matter. Without His Grace in the initial vision we cannot begin this work. Without His Grace at the end the work cannot be brought to any successful completion. This cannot be stated more plainly. So collect dew on a spring morning if it pleases, but the hard fact remains – we cannot and do not make The Stone, the Christ Consciousness does it all. Cross reference with DEW OF HEAVEN.

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