Faced with this high level of competition for the religious sentiments of would-be devotees, any religion hoping to maintain a following would have had to make a bid of its own. Whatever the reason, at any rate, there appeared on the scene a new Jewish mystical text that clearly was aimed at competing with the gnostic texts. A little text known as the Seyfer Yetzirah or Book Of Formation, supposedly received from God in a revelation to Abraham and passed down secretly through the millenia, found its way to the light of day. The Book Of Formation is a highly cryptic text relating the cosmogonic and anthropogonic significance of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The twenty-two letters of this alphabet are divided, in the book, into three groups: the three Mother Letters, the seven Double Letters, and the twelve Simple Letters. These twenty-two letters are said to have been used by Yahweh to form three analogous regions: (1) the twenty-two components of the universe: the three Elements of Fire, Water, and Air, the seven astrological Planets, and the twelve signs of the Zodiac; (2) the twenty-two components of Man: Head, Belly, and Chest, the seven openings of the head (e.g., the mouth, ears, etc.), and the twelve organs (e.g., the liver, stomach, etc.); and (3) the twenty-two components of the Year: the three Seasons (Hot, Cold, and Wet), the seven Days of the Week, and the twelve Months of the Hebrew year.⁴