Rosanne said:
Kabbalah is the Jewish doctrines about divinity.
These were first seen in the Essenes -200Bc to 400Ad
Kabbalah was the term used in the Middle Ages for the same (as above ) spiritual practices.
Cabala is the word when talking about(and studying) the diaspora of Jewish mystical thought from the 10th Century through to the 18th Century in Europe.
Qabalah is from the 18th Century when Christian and Judiac knowledge was blended. It was at this time that it used in conjunction with Tarot? Numerology? Astrology? and the Tree of Life was co- opted with the Hebrew Alphabet and assigned to Tarots Majors? (please excuse me if my terminology is crude).
If the above is correct what I would like to know is- When TdM was used was there 'Kabbalah' inherent in it? Was the usual tree with its Sefirot ( I have seen others curtesy of jmd and sacred geometry) always assigned the same way ie Kingdom -Malkuth crown-kether? I have gathered the paths are in dispute? ie Who decided Malkuth to Yod was the path of Judgement?etc. I have a great deal of trouble when trying to find out about 'Qabbalah' and who to rely on as an authority. It is me not the book but I found the Garden of Pommegranates to hard to follow (like Waite lol) and would like to know where to start. ~Rosanne
Hi Rosanne!
Firstly, it is all Qabbalah (although Kabbalah is OK since the Q sounds like a K). Those other spellings are just sorry attempts at translation. The Hebrew is QBLH; the first 'a' is short while the second and third are long; the 'B' is usually a soft 'v' sound, so to make it a hard sound the letter is doubled. The accent is on the second syllable.
Actually, the Qabbalah is a generic term. The word means "received", and "tradition" and covers just about anything that constitutes Jewish mysticism. What we commomnly understand as The Qabbalah and the Tree of life is derived from two sources:
The first is pre-19th century texts such as The Zohar and Sepher Yetzirah; a collection of books and treatises as confused, impenetrable, and contradictory as any you'll find by Crowley.
The second is post-19th century texts such as Crowley's "Liber 777" and Dion Fortune's "The Mystical Qabalah", which seek to make it palatable to Western understanding.
The fact is that although we like to call ourselves Qabbalists what we practice has very little in common with traditional Jewish mysticism. What we generally follow is the result of late Rosicrucion, Golden Dawn, and Thelemic "study". I have put study in inverted commas because there is also a lot of invention and artistic creativity, as well as unrelated subjects such as myth and alchemy, been crowbard into it. And what I mean by "it" is the Tree of Life diagram. The standard form of which we all know and love. The names of that Tree have remained unchanged, although Sephirah 4 is sometimes called Gedullah. The English names are simple translations of the Hebrew names.
Nevertheless, for good or ill, it has become the Western Mystical System par excellence and if it helps us to live fulfilling lives then what does it matter if the Rabbis shake their heads in disbelief. And, hey, what's good enough for Madonna is good enough for me!
Regarding the Paths; the various schools of thought, each putting their own arrangement of cards and symbols onto the various paths is their attempt to communicate with the Tree, and therefore with their own inner life, in a language which they can understand. The wonderful thing is that it works whatever you put there! Provided you work with the Tree - which entirely depends on how much you believe in what you are doing - you'll find the Tree will work for you!
There is no empirical truth that the path between Malkuth and Hod is given Judgement. It wound up there because, according to the Rosicrucians, Judgement equals Shin and Shin was given the 31st path:
"The only reason that 22 Paths were allotted to the tree was that the Hebrew Alphabet had that number of letters. Differing Schools attribute the letters in different ways, and all claim to get results. Any letter-association will bring some kind of results, but only to those accepting it. A serious snag to the Hebrew attrubutions for Western occultists is that it only communicates in Hebrew...It was mainly to overcome this language difficulty that purely ideographic symbols such as Tarot and Zodiac were attached to the Paths. The thoery of this was sound, but the practice proved weak, since so few agreed which card fitted where.
"There are few if any serious divergences about the Sephiroth themselves, but the paths have become more of a battleground for disentient occultists, rather than peaceful promenades in search of knowledge. Each different School takes an assortment of numerals, letters, Zodiac signs, and Tarot Trumps and assigns these conflicting symbols to whichever Paths they consider most likely. Then they declare their own doctrine of infallibilty and defy all unbelievers.
"All we can read are the opinions and theories of others, which may or may or may not be helpful. Each Qabalist must formulate the Tree according to his own life within its pattern. Those unable to do this cannot be Qabalists"
All quoted from The Ladder of Lights, by William G. Gray, which I heartily recommend as a starting point.
It is highly debatable if Qabbalah was used in TdM. I don't think it was but there are some who believe so. The trouble is that any correspondance has been made after the event, so to speak, and so can prove anything (Nostradamus anyone?). The problem is that you'd have to find some kind of correspondance with the Qabbalah of the time. Not so easy.
Apart from Ladder of Lights, I would recommend Dion Fortune's The Mystical Qabalah and Gareth Knight's two volume A Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism as excellent starters.
A few links if you're interrested:
For a history of The Qabbalah and The Zohar:
http://www.kabbalah.info/engkab/mystzohar.htm
For the Sepher Yetzirah:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/yetzirah.htm
Hope this helps