Date: 07 JUL 95 02:02:00
From: cal_hplb_hpl_hp_com@hms.com
Newgroups: alt.magick
Subject: 05:Kabbalah FAQ
they have observed that from a biological point of view, the male
"gives", and the female "receives", and have given the sephira
Chokhmah the title "Father" and the sephira Binah the title "Mother".
In time, this distinction between male and female has been lost, and
carelessness has lead to the substitution of masculine and feminine,
whith entirely changes the original meaning.
A second difficulty is caused by a common tendency in people to use
the astrological correspondence of a planet as the primary means for
understanding a sephira, so that for many people, Gevurah and Mars are
synonymous. This is equivalent to saying that because a sunflower
reminds me of the sun, the sun *is* a sunflower. The fact that one is
a luminous ball of gas and the other is a plant with yellow petals
should give a clue as to the magnitude of this kind of error. The
metaphorical relationship between the sephira Tipheret and the sun is
no closer than that between the sun and a sunflower. Likewise the
relationship between Gevurah and Mars, and between Netzach and Venus -
this is an example of the finger pointing at the moon: look at the
finger and you don't see the moon.
What follows is a very brief characterisation of each sephiroth, with a
brief rational for the corresponding planetary association.
Kether: Unity
Chokhmah: Unconditioned Creativity
Binah: Possibility of Boundaries
Chesed: Conditioned Creativity
Gevurah: Response to Boundaries
Tipheret: Self-Consciousness
Netzach: Response to Creativity
Hod: Appreciation of Boundaries
Yesod: Ego
Malkuth Diversity
This is an abstract approach which concentrates on the polarity of
force/creativity and form. In Kabbalah this is expressed as the
polarity of Chokhmah and Binah. Chokhmah is the unconditioned
creativity that explodes out of unity of Kether. Binah is concealed
in this duality, in the separation between Kether and Chokhmah, and
expresses the possibility of duality, of separation between one thing
and another. Binah is the Mother of Form, the root of separation
which forms the basis for all distinctions and fininteness. The
Mother receives the creative outpouring of Chokhmah and gives birth to
it in Chesed. Chesed reflects the creativity of Chokhmah, but is
conditioned by the boundaries and distinctions of Binah. Chesed
creates within the realm of the possible; Binah defines what *is*
possible.
Gevurah is the response to boundaries. Chesed wants to move existing
boundaries around, and Gevurah is the response to that. This response
is typically reactionary, a defense of the status quo, an attempt to
keep the boundaries where they were. Chesed is active - it changes
the status quo. Gevurah is receptive - it takes the existing status
quo and defends it.
Netzach is the response to creativity. It is the place of aesthetic
judgements, of likes and dislikes, of passions for this and that. It
is the adulation of a fan for a band, or an artist, or a polititian.
Hod is the appreciation of boundaries, a passion for classifation,
rules, detail, hair-splitting definitions. Netzach is active;
feelings tell us what we should like. Feelings direct our behaviour.
Hod is receptive, in that it elaborates what it is given.
The more confusing planetary associations should now (I hope) be
clearer. Saturn is the sphere of limitation, old age, death, and
corresponds to Binah, the Mother of Form, from whose womb all
finiteness comes. Jupiter, the leader, corresponds to Chesed. Mars
(as the warrior defending the law and the State) corresponds to
Gevurah (but not Mars as the bloodthirsty berserker - this is an
aspect of Chesed). Venus, the romantic aesthete, goddess of love and
sensual beauty, corresponds to Netzach. Mercury, the god of trade, science,
communication, medicine, discourse, trickery, corresponds to Hod.
Do not expect to find a detailed consistency between a sephira and its
planetary correspondence: the sun is not a sunflower. There is a
subtlety and generality, not to mentioned coherency, in the idea of
sephirotic emanation which is not to be found in the planetary
correspondences.
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Section 3: A POTTED HISTORY OF KABBALAH
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Kabbalists and scholars disagree on the date of the origins of the
Kabbalah. Many Kabbalists trace the tradition back to 1st. century
A.D. Palestine. Scholars tend to identify Kabbalah with specific
ideas which emerged in 12th. century Provence in the school of R.
Isaac the Blind, who has been called "the father of Kabbalah". What
is abundantly clear however is that there is a continuous thread of
Jewish mysticism running from early times, and these strands have
become so intertwined with Kabbalah that it is difficult to know where
one ends and another begins. For example, the highly influential
text, the "Sepher Yetzirah", was the subject of widespread commentary
by medieval Kabbalists but the text may have been written as early as
the 1st. century. Again, ideas from Jewish Gnosticism from the 2nd.
and 3rd. centuries have also become deeply embedded in Kabbalah.
The earliest documents associated with Kabbalah come from the period
~100 to ~1000 A.D. and describe the attempts of "Merkabah" mystics to
penetrate the seven halls (Hekaloth) of creation in order to reach
the Merkabah (throne-chariot) of God. These mystics appear to have
used what would now be recognised as familiar methods of shamanism
(fasting, repetitious chanting, prayer, posture) to induce trance
states in which they literally fought their way past terrible seals
and guards to reach an ecstatic state in which they "saw God". An
early and highly influential document, the "Sepher Yetzirah", or
"Book of Formation", originated during the earlier part of this period.
By the early Middle Ages further, more theosophical developments had
taken place, chiefly a description of "processes" within God, and the
development of an esoteric view of creation as a process in which God
manifests in a series of emanations, or sephiroth. This doctrine of
the sephiroth can be found in a rudimentary form in the "Sepher
Yetzirah", but by the time of the publication of the book "Bahir" in
the 12th. century it had reached a form not too different from the
form it takes today.
A motive behind the development of the doctrine of emanation can be
found in the questions:
"If God made the world, then what is the world if it is not
God?"
"If the world is God, then why is it imperfect?"
It was necessary to bridge the gap between a pure and perfect being
and a manifestly impure and imperfect world by a series of "steps" in
which the divine light was successively diluted. The result has much
in common with neoplatonism, which also tried to resolve the same
difficulty by postulating a "chain of being" which bridged the gap
between the perfection of God, and the evident imperfection of the
world of daily life.
One of most interesting characters from this early period was Abraham
Abulafia (1240-1295), who believed that God cannot be described or
conceptualised using everyday symbols. Like many Kabbalists he
believed in the divine nature of the Hebrew alphabet and used
abstract letter combinations and permutations ("tzeruf") 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 fascinating
extract from a description of one such experiment. Abulafia is unusual
because (controversially) he was one of the few Kabbalists to provide
explicit written details of practical techniques.
The most influential Kabbalistic document, the "Sepher ha Zohar" or
"Book of Splendour", was published by Moses de Leon (1238-1305), a
Spanish Jew, in the latter half of the thirteenth century. The Zohar
is a series of separate documents covering a wide range of sub-
jects, 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.
An important development in Kabbalah was the Safed school of mystics
headed by Moses Cordovero (1522-1570) and his successor Isaac Luria
(1534-1572). Luria, called "The Ari" or Lion, was a highly charismatic
leader who exercised almost total control over the life of the
school, and has passed into history as something of a saint. Emphasis
was placed on living in the world and bringing the consciousness of
God through *into* the world in a practical way. Practices were
largely devotional.
Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Judaism as a whole
was heavily influenced by Kabbalah, but two influences caused its
decline. The first event was the mass defection of Jews to the cause
of the heretic and apostate pseudo-messiah Shabbatai Tzevi (1626-1676),
an event Scholem calls "the largest and most momentous messianic
movement in Jewish history subsequent to the destruction of the Temple
and the Bar Kokhba Revolt." The Shabbateans included many prominant
rabbis and Kabbalists, and from this point Kabbalah became
inextricably mired with suspicions of heresy. A second influence was
the rise in Eastern Europe of a populist Kabbalism in the form of
Hasidism, and its eventual decline into superstition, so that by the
beginning of this century a Jewish writer was able to dismiss Kabbalah
as an historical curiousity. Jewish Kabbalah has vast literature which
is almost entirely untranslated into English.
A development which took place almost synchronously with the
translation and publication of key texts of Jewish Kabbalah was its
adoption by many Christian mystics, magicians and philosphers.
Some Christians thought Kabbalah held keys that would reveal mysteries
hidden in the scriptures, others tried to find in Kabbalah doctrines
which might be used to convert Jews to Christianity. There were some
who recognised in Kabbalah themes with which they were already familiar
in the literature of Hermeticism and Neoplatonism.
The key figure in what has been called "Christian Kabbalah" is
Giovanni Pico, Count of Mirandola. The liberal atmosphere in Florence
under the patronage of the Medici family provided a haven for both
Jewish scholars (usually employed as translators or physicians) and
humanist philosophers. The fall of Byzantium provided a rich source
of Greek texts such as works of Plato and the Corpus Hermiticum.
Della Mirandola not only popularised Kabbalah, but influenced humanist
scholars such as Johannes Reuchlin to learn Hebrew and study important
source texts. Kabbalah was progressively bundled in with
pythagoreanism, neo-platonism, hermeticism and rosicrucianism to form
a snowball which continued to pick up traditions as it rolled down the
centuries. It is probably accurate to say that from the Renaissance
on, virtually all European occult philosophers and magicians of note
had a working knowledge of some aspect of Kabbalah.
Non-Jewish Kabbalah has suffered greatly from having only a limited
number of source texts to work from, often in poor translations, and
without the key commentaries which would have revealed the tradition
associated with the concepts described. It is pointless to criticise
non-Jewish Kabbalah (as many writers have) for misinterpreting Jewish
Kabbalah; it should be recognised as a parallel tradition with many
points of correspondence and many points of difference.
Very little information has survived about the Practical Kabbalah, but
there is abundant evidence that it involved a wide range of practices
and included practices now regarded as magical - the fact that so many
Kabbalists denounced the use of Kabbalah for magical purposes is
evidence in itself (even if there were no other) that the use of these
techniques was widespread. It is highly likely that many ritual
magical techniques were introduced into Europe by Kabbalists or their
less scrupulous camp followers. The most important medieval magical
text is the "Key of Solomon", and it contains the elements of classic
ritual magic - names of power, the magic circle, ritual implements,
consecration, evocation of spirits etc. No-one knows how old it is,
but there is a reasonable suspicion that its contents preserve tech-
niques which might well date back to Solomon.
The combination of non-Jewish Kabbalah and ritual magic has been kept
alive outside Judaism until the present day, although it has been
heavily adulterated at times by hermeticism, gnosticism, neoplatonism,
pythagoreanism, rosicrucianism, christianity, tantra and so on. The
most important "modern" influences are the French magician Eliphas
Levi, and the English "Order of the Golden Dawn". At least two
members of the Golden Dawn (S.L. Mathers and A.E. Waite) were
knowledgable Kabbalists, and three Golden Dawn members have
popularised Kabbalah - Aleister Crowley, Israel Regardie, and Dion
Fortune. Dion Fortune's "Order of the Inner Light" has also produced
a number of authors: Gareth Knight, William Butler, and William Gray
to name but three.
An unfortunate side effect of the Golden Dawn is that while Kabbalah
was an important part of its "Knowledge Lectures", surviving Golden
Dawn rituals are a syncretist hodge-podge of symbolism in which
Kabbalah seems to play a minor or nominal role, and this has led to
Kabbalah being seen by many modern occultists as more of a theoretical
and intellectual discipline, rather than a potent and self-contained
mystical and magical system in its own right.
Some of the originators of modern witchcraft (e.g. Gerald Gardner,
Alex Saunders) drew heavily on medieval ritual and Kabbalah for
inspiration, and it is not unusual to find modern witches teaching
some form of Kabbalah, although it is generally even less well
integrated into practical technique than in the case of the Golden
Dawn.
To summarise, Kabbalah is a mystical and magical tradition which
originated nearly two thousand years ago and has been practiced
continuously during that time. It has been practiced by Jew and non-
Jew alike for about five hundred years. On the Jewish side it has
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