Interactive Kabbalah

Fulgour

The Inter-Active Qabala

"This project takes advantage of hypertext to make immediate the connections between many disciplines including Jungian metapsychology, Yoga philosophy, astrology, Tarot, Jewish Mysticism, and Qabala. The Tree of Life is a map; with HTML, it becomes clickable - the correspondences can be shown or hidden instantly, in vibrant, full color. "

http://ifdawn.com/

...a very interesting site
 

jmd

The site is indeed interesting, but it needs to be also pointed that it reflects the views of the Golden Dawn.

Neither its Tree pattern, nor its letter attributions - and neither are its letter-Tarot correspondences - are accepted as correct by many people outside of those who already accept GD correlations.

Specifically, the site uses the Kircher form of the Tree; the letter attributions thereon; and the Tarot-Hebrew correspondences as favoured by Wescott (one of the founders of the GD).

The Kabalistic Order of the Rose Cross favours, to give an alternate, differing Tarot-Hebrew correlations, and Tarot-Tree of Life allocations.
 

Fulgour

It is true that Golden Dawn attributions and associations go their own way, leaving authentic kabbalah spinning magically in the wind. I've made several mock-up diagrams of the Tree of Life, focusing on the Worlds as my elemental guide, and they make beautiful meditation guides. My official OGD version only comes in handy when I want to check what someone is referring to in that school of thought. Otherwise, it usually hangs behind my favourite, a hand-coloured poster that naturally includes Da'at. It took a lot of research to get around OGD-style presentations, and my sense of satisfaction was only equalled by my appreciation of the real thing after so many frustrations.
 

Manko

Hi, Fulgor!

Would you then be willing to help us who can't see past GD?
I have but recently started to look at Kaballah, so I might not have a right to ask for your help yet, not having read THAT much so far...
And I don't demand/expect you to help me, but one can always ask.
I would SO like to have other views before I get sucked into ONE "truth" (?) ... ;)

[Edit: added...]

SORRY, I just realised, you might be reveiling this in other treads, so maybe I should do some work on my own and actually utilise what information you have already put out? :)

[Edit: added...]

This will hopefully be my last edit... What I miss is other structures of the tree and/or how the paths (on those variants) correspond to letters... And then I can hang the cards again...

If you have any good links for these things it would be most appreciated!

/Manko
 

Fulgour

Hi Manko,
I think the big shake-up here severed me from this thread, but here we are so let's begin. We have the priveledged advantage of jmd's prescence for just the sort of insightful explorations you envision. He'll be back in a week, and I'm confident we can all begin to clear away some of the stumbling blocks from the pathway to enlightenment.
 

Fulgour

Manko said:
Hi, Fulgor!... What I miss is other structures of the tree and/or how the paths (on those variants) correspond to letters... And then I can hang the cards again...
What you can do right now, and derive the best possible results from, is to create your own model of the Tree of Life, building it slowly and carefully according to your understanding, what makes sense to you and that you agree with. You'll find that at the same time, the many variations will slowly reveal their true natures, right before your eyes. And you'll have something very worthwhile to show for your efforts. I enjoyed making mine as artistically pleasing as possible, getting creative and having fun.
 

jmd

All I can do is (re-)present various views... so hopefully any insightful explorations will be those we each make as we each further our own journeys.

Numerous contributors hereon have investigated various aspects - and to begin to name some would only do an injustice to those I leave out.

With regards to the Tree of Life itself, one aspect which is clear is that it has ten emanations (or 'sapphires' - one of the meanings of Sefirot).

The Golden Dawn utilises one particular version of this Tree, and has decided to apply, along its Sefirotic connecting 'branches', the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Some more modern Kabalists have also done the same, with either that or another version of the Tree.

Being a word-oriented bulletin-board, it becomes more difficult to also present various images, but I personally suggest that one of the important elements in getting to understand and appreciate the glyph of the Tree o' Life is to actually draw it, as mentioned by Fulgour - actually, he goes importantly much further than 'simply' drawing it, for he says 'CREATE your own model'.

Here, two parts are quite important in maintaining the living tradition beyond the form: to create, and to recognise that it is but a model. Similarly, to use a relatively familiar analogy, the image of a pipe is not itself a pipe.