By Sir Godfrey Higgins – On this subject General Vallancey observes, “And hence the Sephiroth-tree, or tree of numbers, of the Cabalistical Jews:

Item, Spurius Liber de Caeremoniis Magicis, qui Quartus Agrippae habetur. Quibus accesserunt, Heptameron Petri de Abano. Ratio compendiaria Magiae naturalis, ex Plinio desumpta ; Disputatio de Fascinationibus ; Epistola de Incantatione & Adiuratione, collique suspensione. Iohannis Tritemij opuscula quaedam huius argumenti : Diversa divinationum genera a quodam Antiquitatis studioso collecta

Item, Spurius Liber de Caeremoniis Magicis, qui Quartus Agrippae habetur. Quibus accesserunt, Heptameron Petri de Abano. Ratio compendiaria Magiae naturalis, ex Plinio desumpta ; Disputatio de Fascinationibus ; Epistola de Incantatione & Adiuratione, collique suspensione. Iohannis Tritemij opuscula quaedam huius argumenti : Diversa divinationum genera a quodam Antiquitatis studioso collecta

and this tree contained ten names, viz corona, sapientia, prudentia, dementia, gravitas, ornatus, tri”umphus, confessio laudis, fundamentum, regnum.

The number ten seems to have been fixed on because, as relating “to numerals, ten was called perfection, as from thence all nations began to count anew.

For this reason the Egyptians “expressed the number ten by the word mid, that is, perfection; and the Irish call it deag, a word of like meaning: “and for this reason the Chaldeans formed the word jod, or number ten, by an equilateral triangle thus which was “the symbol of perfection with the Egyptians.”

The Egyptians doubled the triangle thus X, and then it became a cross “of St. Andrew, or the letter X or ten, that is, perfection, being the perfect number, or the number of figures on both “hands: hence it stood for ten with the Egyptians, Chinese, Phoenicians, Romans, and is so used with us at this “day.

The Mexicans also use the same figure in their secular calendars. The Tartars call it lama, from the Scythian “lamh, a hand, synonymous to the jod of the Chaldeans, and thus it became the name of a cross, and of the high priest “of the Tartars; and with the Irish, luam signifies the head of the church, an abbot, Ce qu’il y a de remarkable “e’est que le grand prStre des Tartares port le nom de lama qui, en langue Tartare, signifie la croix: et les Bogdoi qui “conquirent la Chine en 1644, et qui sont soumis au dalai-lama dans les choses de la religion, ont toujours des croix “sur eux, qu’ils appellent aussi lamas.”

It has been observed by General Vallancey, that “it seems natural and universal to man to have entertained “the idea of numbering from his fingers, and it does not appear extraordinary that, when man led an agrestic life, fas “the Chaldeans and Scythians, the parents of numerals, did,) and had occasion to carry numbers higher than the fingers on his hands, that, before he had assigned arbitrary marks for numbers, he should have, adopted the names of “trees—objects immediately surrounding him, some of which grew more luxuriantly than others—and that having “invented an arbitrary mark for such a number, he should give it the name of the tree which stood for it: and thus, “having formed a numerical alphabet, these numerals at length became letters, as I have shewn in the preceding pages, “still bearing the original names.”‘

Anacalypsis an Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil of the Saitic Isis …, Volume 1  By Godfrey Higgins

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