Qabalah
(Revision as of 09:56, 27 Sep 2004)
Part of the Magick in Theory & Practice series.
Qabalah (alt. kabbalah) is an aspect of Jewish mysticism. It consists of a large body of speculation on the nature of divinity, the creation, the origin and fate of the soul, and the role of human beings. It consists also of meditative, devotional, mystical and magical practices which were taught only to a select few and for this reason Kabbalah is regarded as an esoteric offshoot of Judaism. In general usage, the spelling qabalah is used to distinguish the variation of kabbalah used by western or hermetic magicians from Jewish mystical kabbalah.
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1.1 The Kabbalah in Jewish Mystical Tradition |
The History of Qabalah/Kabbalah
The Kabbalah in Jewish Mystical Tradition
The word "Kabbalah" is derived from the Hebrew root "to receive, to accept", and in many cases is used synonymously with "tradition". According to Jewish tradition, the Torah (Torah - "Law" - the first five books of the Old Testament) was created prior to the world and she advised God on such weighty matters as the creation of human kind. When Moses received the written law from God, tradition has it that he also received the oral law, which was not written down, but passed from generation to generation. At times the oral law has been referred to as "Kabbalah" - the oral tradition.
The earliest documents which are generally acknowledged as being Kabbalistic come from the 1st. Century C.E., but there is a suspicion that the Biblical phenomenon of prophecy may have been grounded in a much older oral tradition which was a precursor to the earliest recognisable forms of Kabbalah. Some believe the tradition goes back as far as Melchizedek. There are moderately plausible arguments that Pythagoras received his learning from Hebrew sources. There is a substantial literature of Jewish mysticism dating from the period 100AD - 1000AD which is not strictly Kabbalistic in the modern sense, but which was available as source material to medieval Kabbalists.
On the basis of a detailed examination of texts, and a study of the development of a specialist vocabulary and a distinct body of ideas, Scholem has concluded that the origins of Kabbalah can be traced to 12th. century Provence. The origin of the word "Kabbalah" as a label for a tradition which is definitely recognisable as Kabbalah is attributed to Isaac the Blind (c. 1160-1236 C.E.), who is also credited with being the originator of the idea of sephirothic emanation.
By the early middle ages further, more theosophical developments had taken place, chiefly a description of "processes" within God, and a highly esoteric view of creation as a process in which God manifests in a series of emanations. This doctrine of the "sephiroth" can be found in a rudimentary form in the "Yetzirah", but by the time of the publication of the book "Bahir" (12th. century) it had reached a form not too different from the form it takes today. One of most interesting characters from this period was Abraham Abulafia, who believed that God cannot be described or conceptualised using everyday symbols, and used the Hebrew alphabet in intense meditations lasting many hours to reach ecstatic states. Because his abstract letter combinations were used as keys or entry points to altered states of consciousness, failure to carry through the manipulations correctly could have a drastic effect on the Kabbalist. In "Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism" Scholem includes a long extract of one such experiment made by one of Abulafia's students - it has a deep ring of truth about it.
Probably the most influential Kabbalistic document, the "Sepher ha Zohar", was published by Moses de Leon, a Spanish Jew, in the latter half of the thirteenth century. The "Zohar" is a series of separate documents covering a wide range of subjects, from a verse-by-verse esoteric commentary on the Pentateuch, to highly theosophical descriptions of processes within God. The "Zohar" has been widely read and was highly influential within mainstream Judaism as well as Hermetic Qabalah.
Historical Hermetic Qabalah
About the 16th century, Western European scholars began taking interest in the Jewish Kabbalah. In this century we first see documents refering to Hermes Trismegistus, the "father" of Hermetic Magic.
At the time it was believed that the Corpus really was the religion of the ancient Egyptians, and that Hermes was a kind of Egyptian Moses. The fact that they were written much later, and heavily influenced by Neoplatonism, had the effect of convincing readers at that time that Greek philosophy was founded on much older, Egyptian religious philosophy - this had a huge influence on liberal religious and philosophical thinking at the time. Into this environment came the Kabbalah, brought in part by fleeing Spanish Jews, and it was seized upon as another lost tradition, the inner, initiated key to the Bible.
Two figures stand out. One was Giovanni Pico, Count of Mirandola, who commissioned several translations of Kabbalistic works, and did much to publicise Kabbalah among the intellectuals of the day. The other was Johannes Reuchlin, who learned to read Hebrew and became deeply immersed in Kabbalistic literature. It must be said that Jews were suspicious of this activity, finding that Christian scholars were using the Kabbalah as a bludgeon to persuade them to convert to Christianity.
It was out of this eclectic mixture of Christianity, Hermeticism, Neoplatonism, Kabbalah and Renaissance humanism that Hermetic Kabbalah was born. Over the centuries it has developed in many directions, with strong influences from Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism, but continued input from Jewish Kabbalah has meant that many variants are not so different in spirit from the original. Its greatest strength continues to be a strong element of religious humanism - it does not attempt to define God and does not define what an individual should believe, but it does assume that some level of direct experience of God is possible and there are practical methods for achieving this. In a modern world of compartmentalised knowledge, scientific materialism, and widespread cultural and historical illiteracy, it provides a bridge between the spirit of enquiry of the Renaissance (the homo universalis or - in Hebrew - hakham kolel) and the emergence of a similar spirit of enquiry in our own time.
Qabalah in Recent Ceremonial Magick
Qabalah was a subject of study for most Ceremonialists between the time of John Dee and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. But Eliphas Levi, whose influence on the Order of the Golden Dawn and on Thelema was great, rooted his Transcendental Magic (Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie) in a Qabalistic tradition. His Elements of the Kabbalah remains a fundamental text for the student of ceremonial magick.
It would not be an overstatement to say that the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was a Qabalistic organization. Its initiatory structure was based on the Tree of Life. Indeed, its entire magical system depended on the Qabalah.
Qabalah and Thelema
Put simply, Qabalah is a sine qua non in the practice of Thelemic magick. Aleister Crowley summarized the importance of Qabalah in The Temple of Solomon, Liber LVII:
Fortunately, there is one science that can aid us, a science that, properly understood by the initiated mind, is as absolute as mathematics, more self-supporting than philosophy, a science of the spirit itself, whose teacher is God, whose method is simple as the divine Light, and subtle as the divine Fire, whose results are limpid as the divine Water, all-embracing as the divine Air, and solid as the divine Earth. Truth is the source, and Economy the course, of that marvellous stream that pours its living waters into the Ocean of apodeictic certainty, the Truth that is infinite in its infinity as the primal Truth which which it is identical is infinite in its Unity.
Need we say that we speak of the holy Qabalah? O science secret, subtle, and sublime, who shall name thee without veneration, without prostration of soul, spirit, and body before thy divine Author, without exaltation of soul, spirit, and body as by His favour they bathe in His lustral and illimitable Light?
Principles of Qabalah
To summarize the principles of Qabalah within this space is similar to attempting to define "love" in three words. There are, however, a few concepts that are fundamental to the Qabalah. The student must do more research beyond this article. A beginning list of sources follows.
The Sephiroth and the Tree of Life
In the original Jewish tradition, the sephiroth (singular sephira) are the ten aspects or manifestations of God. They begin with the highest aspect, Kether, and as the energy or concepts of God pass through creation, reaches the created world, the world humanity dwells in, Malkuth.
As Kabbalistic tradition grew, kabalists conceived of an interconnected pathway between the ten Sephiroth by which the energy of the Sephiroth traveled and by which adepts could travel to gain the benefits of each Sephira. This network of pathways became known as the Tree of Life.
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Gematria, Notarikon, and Temura
Gematria
Gematria is a method of exegesis (critical explanation or analysis of a text) used since the time of the Second Temple to derive insights into the sacred writings, to obtain interpretations of the text, or to illustrate a secular matter. The Hebrew language uses its letters to represent numbers. The first nine letters represent the numbers I to 9 respectively; the next 10 letters represent the numbers 10, 20... to 90; and the next four represent 100 to 400.
The cipher alphabet makes possible the method known in Hebrew as gematria. The term gematria is based on the Greek geometria. In talmudic times the rabbis began to mean by it "calculation" in general. In this sense, they used the numerical value of the letters of one word or verse to construct a different word or verse, the numerical value of whose letters equals that of the original passage, in order to give the original verse an added or a different meaning.
Thelemites make use of Gematria to link words and concepts and to validate revelations given to them in magical operations. Perhaps the most useful Thelemic book on Gematria is Liber D, the Sepher Sephiroth. This book is a listing of Gematric numbers and some of the words associated with their gematric values.
Notarikon
Temurah
The "72 Names of God"
There are three verses in the Old Testament which, in Hebrew, are made up of exactly the same number of letters. These are Exodus 14: 19-21.
14:19 And the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them:
14:20 And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness [to them], but it gave light by night [to these]: so that the one came not near the other all the night.
14:21 And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go [back] by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry [land], and the waters were divided.
Kabbalists believe that by lining up each verse, one atop the other, and then selecting the three letters that are aligned from top to bottom (starting from the left, as Hebrew is written from left to right), one derives 72 "names of God". The nature of these verses are such that they represent great power: the power of God to part waters and call forth his angels.
The "72 names" primarily appear in Jewish Kabbalah and are particularly prevalent in the current manifestation of Kabbalah taught through the "Kabbalah Centre" in Jerusalem. (www.kabbalah.com)
Sources
On the Web
- http://www.digital-brilliance.com/kab/ Colin Low's Qabalah Page. Far and away the best web resource for Qabalah.
- http://www.digital-brilliance.com/kab/faq.htm Qabalah FAQ.
- http://www.digital-brilliance.com/kab/nok/index.htm A Depth of Beginning Low, Colin. Colin Low's free PDF introductory text on Hermetic Qabalah. A very good resource for the beginner. You can't beat the price.
- http://www.kabbalah.com The Kabbalah Centre in Jerusalem. The modern center of popular Jewish Kabbalah study. This is the organization which brought pop singer Madonna to Kabbalah.
Books
NB: These are introductory books only and by no means comprehensive. Refer to the bibliographies in these and other sources for original sources on Qabalah.
- Duquette, Lon Milo. The Chicken Qabalah of Rabbi Lamed ben Clifford. Weiser Books (2001). Absolutely the best introduction to Qabalah for the person with no knowledge of the subject.
- Fortune, Dion. Mystical Qabalah. Weiser Books (2000). Dion Fortune considered the Qabalah to be "Western Yoga."
- Regardie, Israel. The Tree of Life: An Illustrated Study in Magic. Llewelyn Publications (2000). One of several books by Regardie on the Qabalah. Opinion varies as to which is the best.
- Regardie, Israel. A Garden of Pomagranates: Skrying on the Tree of Life. Llewelyn Publications (1999). Another of the best known of Regardie's books on Qabalah.
- Crowley, Aleister. Liber LVIII: The Temple of Solomon the King with An Essay upon Number.. Crowley's fundamental text on Qabalah. Try to find one complete publication, rather than the online PDF versions available, as they often are not complete.
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