Pure sources of Kabbalah

[Apech]

What Moses took from his Egyptian upbringing is something totally interesting to me.

 

yes his name is Egyptian Meses meaning 'born' as in Ra-meses (Ra is born). As to what he learned there I am not aware of any authentic sources that might tell us. Its possible you could relate the 10 commandments back to the 42 negative confessions ... but that's not very interesting. the burning bush ... there's plenty of sacred trees in Egypt some of which are clearly symbols of the luminous body.

 

Like this

 

 

 

 

What he def didn't learn is that Kabbalah is from Ka-Ba-Ankh ... this is one of the those false etymologies which float around the ineternet ....

[三江源]

yes his name is Egyptian Meses meaning 'born' as in Ra-meses (Ra is born). As to what he learned there I am not aware of any authentic sources that might tell us. Its possible you could relate the 10 commandments back to the 42 negative confessions ... but that's not very interesting. the burning bush ... there's plenty of sacred trees in Egypt some of which are clearly symbols of the luminous body.

 

Like this

 

 

 

 

What he def didn't learn is that Kabbalah is from Ka-Ba-Ankh ... this is one of the those false etymologies which float around the ineternet ....

 

Started reading Qabalah, A Magical Primer by John Bonner,

 

and found on page 42:

in Exodus, God gives Moses the name, AHIH ( pronounced EHEIEH),"I AM", which is a God-name of Kether, the first Sephirah of the Holy Tree.

[GrandmasterP]

Nice thing about some Kabalists is that they have feminised the patriarchy out of the OT.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/wmn/wb/wb59.htm

[ralis]

Recommend Carlo Suares 'Cipher of Genesis'.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Cipher-Genesis-Qabalistic-Interpret-Teachings/dp/1578633354/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1356026066&sr=1-1&keywords=carlo+suares

[ralis]

Just found this book on Kabbalah. The download is free and the book is open source.

 

http://punctumbooks.com/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2012/03/Horwitz_Reality_in_the_Name_of_God.pdf

[Cheshire Cat]

I think that it's commonly accepted that the Kabbalah was used for dozens of different purposes: from magical ones to spiritual cultivation.

 

For example, the christian qabbalah handled by the GD is fundamentally a magical system. Crowley was well-versed in using qabbalistic associations to identify timing and garments for rituals. Qabbalah was used for magical-oriented meditation, to conjure spirits, to visit other worlds.

Qabbalas symbolism was often used to create a "set" of grades in esoteric orders, etc...

So, qabbalah is a wide variety of layers, one on the others, merging in a way that it is impossible to grasp the origins of a particular set of associations.

 

Jewish kabbalah on the other hand, was much more on spiritual cultivation (as we see in Aryeh Kaplan's books) with less emphasis on magic and much more focus on "emptiness-like" meditations.

 

What's the original purpose of Kabbalah?

Is it a purpose fulfilled by the totality of kabbalistic traditions?

Edited January 16, 2013 by DAO rain TAO

[ralis]

Picked this one up today. Practical application if Kabbalah.

 

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1580623352

[Cat Pillar]

"It is well known to mystics that if a man meditates upon a symbol around which certain ideas have been associated by past meditation, he will obtain access, to those ideas, even if the glyph has never been elucidated to him by those who have received the oral tradition by "mouth to ear". Dion Fortune, The Mystical Qabalah

 

Get started any time: http://usgs.typepad.com/.a/6a013485938a51970c017c32c5bf81970b-popup

 

 

-My 2 cents, Peace

 

That's pretty cool. I might experiment with that once my 100 days are up.

[RiverSnake]

That's pretty cool. I might experiment with that once my 100 days are up.

 

I am finding that it's a very simple but rewarding method of exploring the Tree. I noted all of observations and experimentations in my journal. Its still a work in progress. But you may find some of it interesting.

 

My 2 cents, Peace

[Taiji Bum]

All modern kabbalah comes from Bahir, Sefer Yetzirah and Zohar. Living traditions outside of Judaism are pretty rare.

[Bodhicitta]

If this Zohar series has been mentioned, good, if not, here is a reminder that the 12 volume full English edition is now finished.  The first nine translated by Daniel C. Matt.  Many fine notes from traditional kabbalists.

 

http://www.sup.org/zohar/

[Jadespear]

I have no real exposure to Kabbalah, but maybe others here do. Feel free to share.

 

(By "pure sources" I simply mean, not kabbalah tied into any particular magickal system...lets JUST talk kabbalah in this thread..."pure" doesn't have anything to do with a particular source being unquestionable in its legitimacy. But that can be discussed, too.)

 

I like these preview videos that I've stumbled upon in the past couple of days...

 

http://www.kabbalah.com/where_to_begin

http://learn.kabbalah.com/power-kabbalah-1

http://learn.kabbalah.com/power-kabbalah-level-2

http://learn.kabbalah.com/power-kabbalah-3

 

...

 

This website appears to offer everything (courses, books, etc) at no cost:

 

http://edu.kabbalah.info/home

 

 

... I have little exposure to the concept of Kabbalah.  I do not even know what the word Kabbalah means... however I did read through all of Franz Bardon's " Key to the True Kabbalah" - and from I can understand - the kabbalah is the language of light, frequency, and vibration that writes the story of the universe eternally...   meaning that kabbalah is a language of light which one could use to imprint cause into reality through the laws of sacred geometry - or quantum mechaincs, whatever you want to call it. 

 

I would recommend reading the Bardon book- because there is no need to learn the hebrew language to understand what he is saying. 

 

It is also interesting to me to see how the hebrew language was written out and how integrated it is with math, physics, and universal phenomenon.... I have not seen another language as equal yet. 

[Seth Ananda]

Along with the Zohar, Isaac Luria and his student Chaim Vital

[goatguy-too]

When I started sharing my observation of Biblical sensus plenior I was called a Kabbalist. Not knowing what it was I went into a deep study of it. I have studied with two rabbis, one of who is a top living teacher. I don't mention their names because I am sure I am a poor student, retaining my Christian faith, and don't wish to embarrass them. (or his memory, one being deceased).

 

There are two ways to talk about Kabbalah. There is doctrinal Kabbalah and the hermeneutic of Kabbalah. I was not so much interested in what they believed as to why they believed it.  As to what they believed, various teachers teach various things, and so it is less interesting to me.

 

The Sephir Yetzirah is the book of formations. It describes how to form words both with an alphabet and with the voice. The main implication is that the letters of the alphabet each have a metaphoric meaning created by the combinations of yods and vavs as you draw them.  The letters combine in two-letter gates which have metaphoric meaning. If you pass through the gate, the meaning reverses in some sense. There is one gate which means the obligation of a slave to a master, and the reverse is the care of a master to a slave to which he obligates himself.

 

One gate is the tree (or the cross) it's reverse is a place of repose like a bed in death. The rabbis could not tell me what the gates meant, so I spent 5 years reverse engineering them from 8000 Hebrew words. And from there down to the letters and the strokes of the letters.  I spent the time because different teachers said different things about it, and I needed a way to discern which ones were closer to the truth of the matter.

 

The sephir yetsirah also goes into details of how to add letters to gates to form the roots of words.

 

Where I depart from Kabbalah is here: Kaballah teaches that when God used words to create, that the words themselves had power; that God was just using the words.  They teach that we can learn to use the words, and when we get good enough, we can nullify the words of God. He will be proud of us, as when a child surpasses his father on the BB court.

 

Naturally, I believe the power of creation is in God, and the alphabet and words are just part of his revelation to his creation.

 

I am now building up the Hebrew dictionary using the metaphor of letters and gates to validate the underlying assumption that words get their meaning from the combinations the letters.

 

As an example: Adamah, Adam, Dam,   Adam came from the ground (Adamah) and he has blood (dam) inside him which gives him life.   The letter Aleph is said by John to represent the Spirit in the word for earth (artz) and so Adam is the blood which had the spirit breathed into him.

 

I see the Sefir Yetzirah as a book on Hebrew linguistics. I use the methods (the hemeneutic) and my derived gates and letter-metaphor on the Bible and it produces the "mystery which has been hidden from the beginning" .

 

I am sure the Biblical doctrine is offensive to many here, but the methods may be of interest.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

When I started sharing my observation of Biblical sensus plenior I was called a Kabbalist. Not knowing what it was I went into a deep study of it. I have studied with two rabbis, one of who is a top living teacher. I don't mention their names because I am sure I am a poor student, retaining my Christian faith, and don't wish to embarrass them. (or his memory, one being deceased).

 

There are two ways to talk about Kabbalah. There is doctrinal Kabbalah and the hermeneutic of Kabbalah. I was not so much interested in what they believed as to why they believed it. As to what they believed, various teachers teach various things, and so it is less interesting to me.

 

The Sephir Yetzirah is the book of formations. It describes how to form words both with an alphabet and with the voice. The main implication is that the letters of the alphabet each have a metaphoric meaning created by the combinations of yods and vavs as you draw them. The letters combine in two-letter gates which have metaphoric meaning. If you pass through the gate, the meaning reverses in some sense. There is one gate which means the obligation of a slave to a master, and the reverse is the care of a master to a slave to which he obligates himself.

 

One gate is the tree (or the cross) it's reverse is a place of repose like a bed in death. The rabbis could not tell me what the gates meant, so I spent 5 years reverse engineering them from 8000 Hebrew words. And from there down to the letters and the strokes of the letters. I spent the time because different teachers said different things about it, and I needed a way to discern which ones were closer to the truth of the matter.

 

The sephir yetsirah also goes into details of how to add letters to gates to form the roots of words.

 

Where I depart from Kabbalah is here: Kaballah teaches that when God used words to create, that the words themselves had power; that God was just using the words. They teach that we can learn to use the words, and when we get good enough, we can nullify the words of God. He will be proud of us, as when a child surpasses his father on the BB court.

 

Naturally, I believe the power of creation is in God, and the alphabet and words are just part of his revelation to his creation.

 

I am now building up the Hebrew dictionary using the metaphor of letters and gates to validate the underlying assumption that words get their meaning from the combinations the letters.

 

As an example: Adamah, Adam, Dam, Adam came from the ground (Adamah) and he has blood (dam) inside him which gives him life. The letter Aleph is said by John to represent the Spirit in the word for earth (artz) and so Adam is the blood which had the spirit breathed into him.

 

I see the Sefir Yetzirah as a book on Hebrew linguistics. I use the methods (the hemeneutic) and my derived gates and letter-metaphor on the Bible and it produces the "mystery which has been hidden from the beginning" .

 

I am sure the Biblical doctrine is offensive to many here, but the methods may be of interest.

 

Goatguy,

 

I am glad that you posted this, and also that you returned to us.  I had looked at some of your earlier posts and found them interesting, but having no real interest in Gnostic texts, such as the Gospel of Thomas, per se, I did not participate in them.  I find the Church Fathers more interesting, however, the whole Hellenistic melting pot in which Gnostic, Orthodox, and Catholic forms of Christianity, as well as the Hellenistic Judaism of Philo of Alexandria, which I believe to be the ancestor of Qabalism, and also the Hellenized versions of Egyptian and Chaldean/Babylonian traditions simmered away, has been a long time interest of mine, since the late Seventies in point of fact.  I also find your discussions of sensus plenior interesting, though I do have some misgivings about it, however, I do find the concept of it possibly relevant to the origin of Qabalah.  So I hope that you are going to stay around, as I have thought for some time that we might have some interesting discussions.  I have been very busy lately and often find myself so, but I do hope that you will stick around and we can have some interesting discussions.

[goatguy-too]

I find that the Church Fathers forgot how to do the same sensus plenior that the NT authors practiced, and fell into free-for-all allegory.  That's where my interest wanes.

 

I find that he methods of sensus plenior and Qabalah are similar, but that when implemented in Qabalah are inconsistent.

They say the ayin is righteousness, but when added to bar, the word becomes son of evil. I have corrected those inconsistencies in the dictionary for sensus plenior.

 

Thank you for the welcome.

Edited April 4, 2017 by goatguy-too

[peacedog94]

For information on guys who've done a lot of work with Bardon's Kabbalah check out Mark Rasmus and the yogicengineering.com blog.

 

[Daniel]

Baal Sulam's introduction to the Zohar:  https://www.sefaria.org/Baal_HaSulam's_Introduction_to_Zohar.1?lang=bi

Cordovero's Or Neerav:  https://www.sefaria.org/Or_Neerav%2C_Introduction?lang=bi

 

Both are free on sefaria.org

 

[Boundlesscostfairy]

So in each instant different sepheroth come into the forefront..

 

Each sepheroth is ordered in each instant based on priority..

 

Categorical imperative which is where the energy is flowing..

 

And the following of curiosity.. which can be mapped onto the Tree of Life..

 

Da'at is to know where the sepheroth are in a line of priority/importance..

 

The string of the sepheroth and the paths on the Kabbalah..

 

Which ones are in our focus and why..