The basic idea of the Kabala consists in the study of the Name of God in its manifestation.

Jehovah in Hebrew is spelt by four letters, Yod, He, Vau and He ­ I, H, V, H. To these four letters is given the deepest symbolical meaning. The first letter expresses the active principle, the beginning or first cause, motion, energy, ``I''; the second letter expresses the passive element, inertia, quietude, ``not I''; the third, the balance of opposites, ``form''; and the fourth, the result or latent energy. The Kabalists affirm that every phenomenon and every object consists of these four principles, i.e., that every object and every phenomenon consists of the Name of God (The Word), ­ Logos. To state it in another way the Kabalists hold that these four principles penetrate and create everything. Therefore, when the man finds these four principles in things and phenomena of quite different categories (when before he had not seen similarity), he begins to see analogy between these phenomena. And, gradually, he becomes convinced that the whole world is built according to one and the same law, on one and the same plan. The richness and growth of his intellect consists in the widening of his faculty for finding analogies. . . .

A symbol may serve to transfer our intuitions and to suggest new ones only so long as its meaning is not defined. Real symbols are perpetually in process of creation; but when they receive a definite significance they become hieroglyphs and finally a mere alphabet.

--P. D. Ouspensky, 1913