Kabbalah and Philosophy: An Explosion of Opposites

Well, I've only studied Kabbalah for about ten years, so am a comparative newcomer, but I'm afraid that I don't agree with all the stuff I read on the website. However, there are many different systems of Kabbalah:- its only a map, after all, but a very good map, of creation and its contents. What is important is to commit to a system which is sufficiently complete to take you as far on the map as you want to go.
One of the glaring faults on tin the teachings on the website above concern the nature of Karma. The Rabbi says that Karma is part of the make-up of the physical world, and compares Karma to auras. This is a far-reaching error: Karma is an expression of the Law of Consequences which is built into the fabric of reality. In fact, until you can live your life in harmony with Karma, the spiritual worlds will remain closed to you. Anyway, they seem well-meaning, and I absolutely agree with a lot of the debunking that they do well, and humerously, in their introduction.
That's how it seems to me, anyway.

David

I don't think AlefBet has posted anything since last year.

As you so rightly say there are many different systems of Kabballah. I have been in different Kabballah meditation groups since 1993 - and my experience of Kabballah has been an experiential one whereby I have got to know myself, especially my strengths/weaknesses/imbalances.

Meditating on the paths of the Tree and the Sephirot has helped me know more about myself and given me the opportunity to rebalance. I have got several books mostly from the Western Mystery Tradition, however I find that the real work is done whilst pathworking.

I will have to take a look at the link provided over the weekend.

Binah
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Hi Binah,
This could be the most spaced-out thread ever!

I have come across another course based on working with the Hebrew letters. Its free (always a good thing) and you don't appear to need a knowledge of Kabbalah or Hebrew to do it. It starts in March, at the solstice.

is the link.

I started with the last intake, and they seem a very nice group of people, with very mixed levels of knowledge and experience, but a real willingness to learn.

Beliefs differ
Take from life that fits with your belief system
And just let the rest go
What you let go will be someone else’s belief system
No problems there
You do not have to believe in everything
However, you should not knock someone else’s belief's either

Thank you David for posting the link.

I would like to do some work with the Hebrew letters so it is something I feel drawn to explore further.

I'm glad to hear that the level of knowledge is mixed, as my experience of Qabalah has been an experiential one, with some study sessions. I did attend a workshop on the Hebrew letters some time back, which was good.

Once again thanks for posting it.

Binah
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Kaballah philoshopy

Hello All,

This is a subject that combines the factors to bring forward the past with the future interlocking the passions of religions with the possibilities that compliment the florishment of the properties of beginingness, willingness is a factor of the philopshopie irritatations of boldness of the consousness of the matters of personalities reflections of the portals of beging of the female to male properties of love of the self with the kaballah the prosperty of blending formal to creative placement factors the fluidness of much that is desired...Now with this in mind you can complete the luck of the waves of experiance finding mixing with the propaganda made a misson of linking the provisions of the linking of the flind the amix the interlocked conditions of the rude ways that males can bring about the love of likeness of greate blessing that are avialable...Gypsee

Hello All,

This is a subject that combines the factors to bring forward the past with the future interlocking the passions of religions with the possibilities that compliment the florishment of the properties of beginingness, willingness is a factor of the philopshopie irritatations of boldness of the consousness of the matters of personalities reflections of the portals of beging of the female to male properties of love of the self with the kaballah the prosperty of blending formal to creative placement factors the fluidness of much that is desired...Now with this in mind you can complete the luck of the waves of experiance finding mixing with the propaganda made a misson of linking the provisions of the linking of the flind the amix the interlocked conditions of the rude ways that males can bring about the love of likeness of greate blessing that are avialable...Gypsee

Hi Gypsee
that sums it up ...................:cool:

I would like to do some work with the Hebrew letters so it is something I feel drawn to explore further.

Well, the course proceeds at what feels like a fast pace, with one lesson a week, and a members-only little forum (not like this one!) to share thoughts and keep in touch with the rest of the group.

My username is the same, so I'll look forward to seeing you there:D

Just dipping in here. On Kabbalah lessons, I once decided to take some up. There was some guy (a bit famous but I forget his name :p) doing courses over the web. For an enormous fee compared to what you get. That's no doubt because he lives at Glastonbury, and many there try to make money (a f/t living) from spiritual courses, as there's precious-little other income in the area. 😮 Another school were based in Israel but didn't resonate at all to a non-Jew like me.

You can't do just everything in life, but to my surprise, since I then lived in London, I found that the guy who IMHO is the best living authority on this, Halevi (look up his books) was only 1 1/2 miles away! So I started to attend his weekly meetings. I can't critique him: the meetings are in his flat, no charge or fee. But (1) I didn't find the whole path was getting me anywhere as compared to other paths or rather the path I am on, and (2) everybody else there had been going weekly for untold years.

I'm a social creature, and found it hard to integrate with a large group who all knew each other and kept to themselves without integrating me. Moreover, they seemed as if they hadn't 'moved much' in all those years. So I left that group.

All the same, when it comes to his books or larger lectures, I'd recommend Halevi any day.

V

All the same, when it comes to his books or larger lectures, I'd recommend Halevi any day.
V

I like HaLevi's stuff, too, and if you are able to go to his face-to-face meetings, or to his correspondence courses, then his system woud be hard to beat.

It is idiosyncratic, however: the correspondences and attributions, and even the structure of his maps, are different to most other systems of Kabbalah that are taught widely.

That's a real difficulty. Quite often, you will begin learning from books, and then find that when the opportunity to study with a live teacher (or Teacher, if you are really fortunate) comes up, you have to adjust and even relearn what's gone before.

There was a debate a few hundred years ago amongst the Rabbis as to whether an incarnate teacher was better or worse than as discarnate (i.e. "dead") one, and they felt it should be left to perssonal preference, but it was mentioned that you don't need to travel so far to meet with a discarnate teacher!

Nice to hear you again, V, by the way!

I first went to a talk on Kabbala given by Halevi (or Warren Kenton as he was then called) in the early 80's. He is incredibly knowledgable about the subject, but it didn't inspire me at that time to pursue the subject. I bought a couple of books earlier by Gareth Knight "A Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism" and Dion Fortune's "Mystical Qabalah" which led me to look further into the Western Mystery Tradition.

In the early 90's I experienced Qabalah pathworking for the first time, by way of creative visualisation and it was then that the Tree of Life started to reveal itself to me in its magical way. I can truly say that I learnt more from walking the paths of the tree of life than reading 100 books, or listening to the same number of lectures. The 32 paths of the Tree of Life have been trod by many aspirants which have left amazing footprints in the ethers.

I look forward to participating in the path of return - there is just so much wisdom in this work.

Binah
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Hi Binah. I bought Dion Fortune's "Mystical Qabalah" in Glastonbury recently, after hearing an interesting & inspiring lecture about her work by a Druidess friend of mine.

As a total beginner, I haven't yet tackled it, but lent it to a friend who devours books & info like food & air. I was hoping he'd give me a "leg up" into it - it looks so intimidating! What would you recommend to a beginner, coming from a 'western mysteries' background (Celtic, Druidic) mixed with esoteric, Gnostic 'Christianity'?
I know only very little about Hebrew tradition.
But I feel really drawn to learn & expand in this direction lately.
How & where should I start?
Many thanks for any advice / suggestions! /l x

Hi Binah,

I tried books on the Tree (by whatever spelling) early in my life, and indeed books just seemed intellectual. (I must be honest that I also already found my Path or Way or method early in life, so the Kabbalah has been something I'm interested in as a side-study, though I'd certainly give it a deep go anyway.)

I I can truly say that I learnt more from walking the paths of the tree of life than reading 100 books, or listening to the same number of lectures.

I'd be truly interested if you could find the time to further elucidate / describe "walking the paths". Thanks.

BTW, Warren Kenton is still called Warren in face-to-face life. He's chosen to write as Halevi.

V

I know only very little about Hebrew tradition.

Modern Kabbalah is only partly about the Hebrew tradition, but I think its fair to say that most of us don't want to learn another language unless its necessary! I was brought up within the Jewish religion, so I have a bit of a start, but actually although I learnt to read Hebrew, translating it wasn't high on my or my teacher's agenda, it was taught to help us pray as a community. I probably know as much Sanscrit as Hebrew, nowadays, and much more French and German.

The teacher of the course I posted on was trained within BOTA, the builders of the adytum, founded by Paul Foster Case. He is very approachable through the small members-only forum attached to the site. The course is based on using the Hebrew alphabet (Aleph-Bait!) as symbols using information and methods from both the Hebrew tradition, and the modern Western Magical Tradition.

Its a gentle introduction. No-one will come away from this course multilingual! However, with one lesson a week, a complete beginner will certainly find it stretching, in the healthy sense of that word 😉

Venetian, until Binah gets back to you with her own personal experience on pathworking, you may find this link helpful

Thank you so much for your very helpful reply & information, David.
(I too am most familiar with French & German, & with some Latin & less Gaelic.)
I'm feeling quite fired-up & encouraged now! I'll search around some more soon & possibly try that course if it grabs me. Cheers. 🙂

Oh, wow, David! I've just read both your linked pages, which really appeal to me. 🙂
I am keen to join in.
As for the second link, about Pathworking: I have been doing many of these meditation sessions over many years, both alone & with my Druid Grove. Also within the Order as a whole (at conferences, Assemblies, wild-camping weeks of storytelling, magic & mystery, sacred ritual & community eco-living, etc.)
And I know David Rankine (who wrote the second page you recommended to Venetian) from PF conferences & various talks /ceremonies elsewhere, & I have his books. A fascinating, friendly, knowledgeable chap.
This is so exciting again, after a difficult period of my life - thanks again.

(ps there's no solstice in March - they occur at midwinter & midsummer. But the Qabalah course starts near the vernal equinox - v propitiously.)

Hope you join, Binah! Oh, I'm happy. 🙂

Venetian, until Binah gets back to you with her own personal experience on pathworking, you may find this link helpful

Oh, "Say no more" (at pains of sounding like Monty Python). Guided or self-guided visualisation/meditation. I'm used to that, and did it with Halevi. I just didn't know that term so thought it might be something quite new to me. So thanks, David - your reply actually probably covers it.

V

Hi Starshower***

What would you recommend to a beginner, coming from a 'western mysteries' background (Celtic, Druidic) mixed with esoteric, Gnostic 'Christianity'?

There are many great books out there apart from a couple I have mentioned you could take a look at The Ladder of Lights by William G. Gray
which is an easier read than Dion Fortune's Mystical Qabalah. Another one I like is The Kabbalah Experience by Naomi Ozaniec which gives you practical exercises in a systematic way.

Hi Venetian

I'd be truly interested if you could find the time to further elucidate / describe "walking the paths". Thanks.

The Tree is a map and in pathworking you can travel along the paths from Sephirot to Sephirot by way of guided visualisation usually in a group. My experience was journeying in a group, under the guidance of a Teacher. However there are probably teachings available that can be followed in a structured way that you can do such as in Naomi's book mentioned above.

Binah
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The Tree is a map and in pathworking you can travel along the paths from Sephirot to Sephirot by way of guided visualisation usually in a group. My experience was journeying in a group, under the guidance of a Teacher. However there are probably teachings available that can be followed in a structured way that you can do such as in Naomi's book mentioned above.

Binah
x

Yes, I had begun doing that in my last brief attempt at delving into the Tree. I don't recall the details, but found it reasonably powerful during the experience with Warren ... though nothing memorable or useful afterwards - which can be put down to my lack of persistence. I hadn't known the term for it.

So. In just about any religion or path, they can tell you what the goal of that path is. What would reasonably experienced people say the goal of the Kabbalah is? Insight, it seemed to me. But I wasn't sure I was seeing self-transcendence in practitioners...

V

Hi Venetian

So. In just about any religion or path, they can tell you what the goal of that path is. What would reasonably experienced people say the goal of the Kabbalah is? Insight, it seemed to me. But I wasn't sure I was seeing self-transcendence in practitioners...

V

Dion Fortune in her book The Mystical Qaballah describes Qaballah as "the yoga of the West". Like any practitioner of yoga if you put in the work you will reap the rewards so it is with pathwork. So like yoga qaballah represents to me union with God/Creative Consciousness and the path of return to whence we came living a life that is balanced, heart centred (Tiferet consciousness) and when we can't be in that space because we are human, having the good sense to meditate on it.

I had a different experience to you as I found working in a group very rewarding and we became closer as the year progressed in fact very close friendships were formed. It was a joy to observe the transformations in others and experience shifts in my consciousness.

x

Like any practitioner of yoga if you put in the work you will reap the rewards so it is with pathwork.

I can't disagree with that. But are there experiences comparable to Eastern ones, I wonder, such as samadhi, kundalini rising?

I had a different experience to you as I found working in a group very rewarding and we became closer as the year progressed in fact very close friendships were formed.

Group work is usually better, so I'm not surprised you found it worked well. My (brief for me) group had been together years, felt cliquey, and I was somewhat always 'outside'. Because they were really more of an audience than a group, then with some brief socialising - tea and biscuits. Looking at myself, I didn't resonate with them TBH.

V

Hi Venetian

I can't disagree with that. But are there experiences comparable to Eastern ones, I wonder, such as samadhi, kundalini rising

I believe so. Kabbalists were given the name Merkabah riders this is an ancient tradition whereby a vehicle was created, by spiritual/ritual practise, to ascend the higher realms in order to unite, become one with the Creator/God. This practise would only be possible if the kundalini energy had risen. If it hadn't then you would probably end up with a very sore head;).

binah
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This practise would only be possible if the kundalini energy had risen. If it hadn't then you would probably end up with a very sore head;).

binah
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Or worse:( :
The Talmud records that four Rabbis rode the Merkabah to its destination. Of these four
One died
One went mad
One converted to another religion (not a success in Talmudic terms;))
And only Rabbi Akiva returned.

In the "four-entered-pardes" section of this portion of the Bavli Gemara on tractate Khaggigah, it is the figure of Aqiba who seems to be lionized. For of the four he is the only one presented who ascended and descended "whole." The other three were broken, one way or another: Ben Azzai dies soon after; Ben Zoma is presented as going insane; and worst of all, "Akher" apostasizes.

from

Hi David

Thanks for the links -

Your post reminds me of what a Jewish client of mine said to me when I told her I was studying Qabalah. She said to me what do you want to do that for it will send you mad.:rolleyes:

Needless to say it hasn't thanks to a very fine teacher. However, it is powerful stuff and under guidance and tuition energy can be raised only though to a level that is right for you.

Of course the work is about balancing the forces that is why in magical orders your progressed through grades or initiations and worked at your own pace. It would be insane not to.:)

Binah
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Before it's even begun, I feel quite a turn-off toward a certain Kabbalah course by email. I shall persist into the first one or two lessons to see if I get better 'vibes' from it. But when I first signed up I got shot-gunned, it seemed, with emails. I thought they were automatically-generated - but one seemed a bit more personal so I tried replying to it - and sure enough all the emails appear to be one-to-one. It seemed a bit much in the course of just my first 48 hours of contact. Especially since some contained exhortations to tell everyone I knew, and any friends, and anyone on Facebook I know, about the course about to start. I didn't take to that.

Then I got, without request, an email with a link to a certain programme which depicts the Tree and its letters in a certain way. The link page said a more complete programme was available "for a donation". So, OK, money had entered in, potentially. I hadn't asked for this link, but sheerly for the sake of being polite, I replied Thanks, and said I'd add it to my favourites. I was simply trying to be nice and indicating that I appreciated it. But the reply was quite miffed indeed, along the lines that "Everybody's doing that, adding it to their favourites instead of buying the complete version. Obviously I'll have to share it in some other way". Those are not the actual words, but the gist.

So, before the course has begun online, it's been quite a put-off.

LOL, and I hope no-one will suggest that I'm deliberately being tested to discover if my patience makes me 'worthy'. :p The tone isn't like that at all.

V

Before it's even begun, I feel quite a turn-off toward a certain Kabbalah course by email.

Well, V, I have to say that when all this started very recently I found it offputting, and it may make you laugh but the most off-putting thing about it was the embarrasment I felt when I thought of my friends Venetian and Binah getting the stuff and wondering what on earth they had let themselves in for.

I would try and persevere. The teacher is a bit of a character, and I think he's been doing a marketing course, and he's quite open about how flaky he thinks a lot of the language is. He comes from America, where this kind of shameless self-promotion (in English terms anyway) is a necessary part of exhibiting healthy self-esteem! I had been trying to persuade him to have a paypal thread on the forum for some time, so that those of us who were so minded could help support the venture, but instead he did this. I contributed something, and the graphics are very pretty! He's also been promoting some teleconferencing live q & a stuff for a fee, did you get those? I didn't subscribe to that.

Also, he didn't know what a server is, which means that some of the emails get sent twice, some go wrong, it all has a very cottage industry feel about it.

I'm also doubtful about this new development, but the quality of the free weekly lessons are really rather good! And there are some quite special people on the forum, I think.

Your post reminds me of what a Jewish client of mine said to me when I told her I was studying Qabalah. She said to me what do you want to do that for it will send you mad.:rolleyes:

Most people in the Jewish community already thought I had gone mad, so no problem there.

Its more of a Journey to Ixtlan, isn't it, although not many will understand that reference either, I'm afraid!

Ah well.

Hi David,

There's no need for me to be long-winded over this; just to say that your post to me was so disarmingly honest, and gave a very open view of what's going on, that it's encouraged me. 🙂 Thanks for the clarity. There are always the competing demands of time, but I'll see how it goes. 🙂

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Slightly off-topic, but your words also prodded into my conscious awareness something that hadn't really been conscious, but simmering in the back of my head. Over the last couple of years, in two instances where I had online US friends (who I'd just-about once known ages ago in RL too), our emails were quite deep and personal i.e sharing as real friends ... then suddenly it shifted into what they (across the pond) obviously didn't realise was verging on the offensive - a sudden shift into "join my network" or "how to make money". It's a general cultural difference. They truly were not trying to make money out of me, but to encourage me into my own business ventures, when money and business wasn't really my reason for contact with them at all. I think as a broad generality, "over there" they do tend to have money-heads, whereas we tend more to have social-care heads.

Ixtlan? It was my favourite book of his whole canon, though I'm afraid some time back I was in an HP thread discrediting his authenticity - which isn't to say they aren't great yarns. So I know the book, but after decades must confess that I forget where or what the allegorical (?) meaning of Ixtlan actually is. I recall that this is when Don Genaro at the very least shares centre-stage for the first time.

V

Hi David,

I forget where or what the allegorical (?) meaning of Ixtlan actually is.

Hi V

Don Genaro relates how, after a seeker completes his quest, he tries to find his way back to his home village, Ixtlan. But he can no longer find it: for him, its gone for ever, because his whole world has changed so as to be unrecognisable.

That's how I recall it. You get the gist, I'm sure.