Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Creation)
- How did the Jewish Kabbalah Tree of Life become the Hermetic or Christian Kabbalah Tree of Life which Tarot users are so familiar? This post is not a forum on the eschatological soundness of either system, but rather an inquiry into the development of both systems with emphasis on the transition between the two systems and the Hermetic System’s subsequent use of Tarot.
>Sefer Yetzirah [is] the earliest extant Hebrew text of systematic, speculative thought. (Scholem, Kabbalah, 1966, p23).
- That is the place to start. It is the first discussion of the 32 “secret paths of wisdom”. Scholem believes the Sefer Yetzirah was written between the 3rd and 6th centuries in Palestine. It is attributed to a Rabbi Akiva, but this is speculation. At this early stage, there was no Tree of Life.
- While this is where I personally wish to start, if any wish to comment, you can jump in anywhere; pre Zohar, post Zohar, Reuchlin, Agrippa, Mathers, Levi et al. The floor is open. How did we as a species start with an obscure 2000 word document and end up with the New Age movement of today?
- (I am especially interested to the initially transition from the Jewish paths on the Tree to the Hermetic paths. Not all sources from that period are available in English and some have only recently been translated.)
- I am barely a novice in the study of the material. If only there were young females who would like to participate in a more personal study of this subject.
For the moment, I leave this to you /his/ ANONs. I’ll check back on your progress later.
>>1137819
why young females?
>>1138084
OP Here...
I would much rather hang out with some 20 something chick than some 20 something dude. Pretty simple really. Wiccan and other occult chicks can be pretty receptive to new ideas.
>>1138153
Do you believe that this knowledge can be achieved through some kind of scientific approach.
Why this kind of stuff can't be measured?
Sorry for the off-topic questions.
>>1138181
OP
I am not seeking specific esoteric knowledge or enlightenment, I am trying to figure out how the ideas in Sefer Yetzirah evolved into Modern New Age Kabbalah. Jews merely scoffs at New Age Kabbalah and New Age practitioners don't know or provide convoluted lineages of their ideas and their organizations.
Note the differences between the two Trees of Life. The left is Christian. The right is Jewish. Why the difference?
I don't see any method of applying the Scientific Method to Modern Christian (or Hermetic) Kabbalah right now. We're talking magic. No practitioner would participate in a double blind study of their abilities. Princeton had a paranormal research lab back in the day, but that's not what this is about.
This is a history of religion / Kabbalah / Tarot kinda thing.
I have a layman's understand. I have read much over time, but the historical record is cloudy and there are gaps.
Thank you for asking and giving me a bump.
OP here...
I have looked across the landscape that is /his/ and found a wasteland of useless arguments over theology. We can't even discuss the /his/tory of religion without the discussion becoming a copypasta festival. Dare I bump this on a Sunday? Sure...
10 Sephirot
22 Letters
There are aspects which are a product of Jewish Gnosis, like the Gospel of John.
I'll be back..
>>1139053
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermetic_Qabalah#History
>>1141352
Is traitor+philia back?
>>1141384
Thank you.
>>1141416
I am not sure what you are referring to.
OP Here
I do not have all of my books and I must rely on the internet for old public domain source material. I just “thumbed” through Cornelius Agrippa’s (1486-1535) ‘Three Books Concerning Occult Philosophy’ (Cologne 1533). There are many tables, diagrams & sigils but there is no Tree of Life. My failing memory recalls the Hermetic (Christian) Tree of Life being an illustration in Agrippa’s work. I guess I was wrong. I may have missed it.
OP Here
At the end of Book 1 in Chapter 74 Agrippa addresses the correspondences of Hebrew, Greek and Latin letters. He ends the book with a table that includes these letters; the divine letters; and zodiacal, planetary and elemental signs. The table does not reflect the standard Hermetic Attributes of the Tree of Life and Tarot (4th Knowledge Lecture, The Golden Dawn, Vol. 1, 5th ed., p139, Regardie, 1971, St. Paul)
So, keeping this in the realm of /his/, where did Agrippa (in the 16th century) get his attributes and how did they change by the 20th Century.
*I believe Regardie’s 1st ed. of Vol. 1 was 1937.
OP Here
In his Introduction to Volume 1 of “The Golden Dawn”, Regardie mentions S.L. MacGregor Mathers (1854-1918) and his ‘The Kabbalah Unveiled” (London 1888). This is a translation into English of the Latin by Christian Knorr von Rosenroth (1684) which is in turn a translation of the Hebrew of portions of “the Zohar”. I’ll get to the Zohar later.
In the Introduction to the “Kabbalah Unveiled” Mathers quotes from “The Kabbalah: Doctrine, Development, and Literature. An Essay” by Christian Ginsburg ((Liverpool? 1865). Up front, on page 1, Ginsburg lists people involved in the early Christian (pre-Hermetic) study of Kabbalah:
Raymond Lully (d. 1315)
John Reuchlin (1455-1522)
John Picus di Mirandola (1463-1494)
Cornelius Henry Agrippa (1486-1535)
John Baptist von Helmont (1577-1644)
Robert Fludd (1574-1637)
Henry More (1614-1687)
Keepin’ it /his/
Raymond Lully (aka Raymond Llull). 1242-1315. Initial look at the Internet for Llull is at odds with Ginsburg's praise of his Kabbalah interests. Apparently several works were attributed to him that he did not write and / or translate and he was an active anti-Semite.
OP Here
Blessed Ramon Llull, T.O.S.F (b.c.1232 Mallorca (now Palma) on Majorca d.c. 1315/16)
Credited as founder of Catalan (language) literature. Llull's legacy is a robust one. He may have contributed some ideas which were picked up by later Kabbalists, but I don't yet see where he supported Jewish mystic thought. He believed in Convert or GTFO for the Jews. He also traveled through North Africa trying to convert Muslims. Knighted. Martyred in Tunisia. Maybe died at sea on the way back. Even though some of his ideas and books were denounced by the church, he was Beatified centuries later. He was a pretty big thinker and well respected back in his day.
url.edu is Universitat Ramon Llull in Barcelona.
Jews murder the Kabbalah... Kabbalah is beginner stuff anyway. End result more like a Da Vinci sketch of the human body. A grand master at Kabbalah, is not a 'Kabbalist'.
Any Jew saying different is shilling for his religion and own ego, Christians at least use the diagram moreover religious indoctrination.
>>1150712
> Kabbalah is beginner stuff anyway
So what is the next step? What is the end goal after kabbalah?
>>1150750
>M0nK3Y not tell you.
John Reuchlin (1455-1522)
This is the guy said to have influence Agrippa. His De Arte Cabalistica (On The Art of the Kabbalah (1517)) is available in English (1993 Lincoln) through Univ. of Nebraska Press.
OP Here
Johann(es) Reuchlin (b. 1455 Pforzheim, Germany; d. 1522 Liebenzell). He was proficient in Greek and Latin and later Hebrew. Noted for introducing the study of Hebrew in German Universities, he published a Hebrew primer (1506) (in Latin) and literally translated some Psalms concentrating on accents and musical emphaisis (1517).
In 1506, Johann Pfefferkorn, a converted Jew, issued pamphlets calling for forced conversion of Jews, receiving Imperial permission to confiscate their books. Reuchlin fought against this and went so far as to recommend establishing Hebrew chairs at German Universities. Throughout 1511-1513 the Dominicans in Cologne also sought to destroy Talmudic and other Jewish books. Reuchlin was charged with heresy, but was acquitted in 1514. His opponents appealed to Rome and he received a Papal Condemnation in 1520.
Notes:
- He remained faithful to the Catholic Church as the Reformation began (1517).
- May have met Pico della Mirandola in Italy in 1490. Unsure who influenced whom at this point in the inquiry
See:
Letters of Eminent Men (1514 Letters in his defense)
Letters of Obscure Men (1515 Letters of monks supporting Reuchlin’s persecution).
De verbo mirifico (1494) and De arte callabistica (1517) are his noted works on Jewish mysticism.
>>1137819
>- How did the Jewish Kabbalah Tree of Life become the Hermetic or Christian Kabbalah Tree of Life which Tarot users are so familiar? This post is not a forum on the eschatological soundness of either system, but rather an inquiry into the development of both systems with emphasis on the transition between the two systems and the Hermetic System’s subsequent use of Tarot.
Generally speaking, the death of the Hekhalot tradition as it made contact with groups like the Copts and the Gnostics and Neoplatonics. By the time the Platonic School got up and running in Florence, the Zohar had already been published unifying old systems with new perspectives, allowing for a Hermetic/Chistian synchretism.
>Scholem believes the Sefer Yetzirah was written between the 3rd and 6th centuries in Palestine. It is attributed to a Rabbi Akiva, but this is speculation. At this early stage, there was no Tree of Life.
Well, that's not exactly the most genuine statement. Various groups within the Merkavah and Hekhalot traditions DID have a "tree of life" it just wasn't described as a tree; the sephira were alternatively concentric circles or faceets of a 3d structure (pic related)
>- (I am especially interested to the initially transition from the Jewish paths on the Tree to the Hermetic paths. Not all sources from that period are available in English and some have only recently been translated.)
Again, I'd look at the Platonic School:
(passages to come)
>>1156489
>Pico della Mirandola became the first Christian scholar to master the Jewish mystical theology of Kabbalah. He attempted to develop a form of syncretism whereby different systems of thought could be harmonized based on shared elements of truth. Pico asserted that even though Platonism and Christianity had different views, they held some truths in common. An important aspect of Pico’s philosophical thought was his defense of the dignity and liberty of the human being, set forth in On the Dignity of Man (1486). Ficino also declared “wake up yourself! Oh! You are God who took human figure.” Both philosophers resurrected the humanistic views of ancient Greece. However, the humanism of the Renaissance was more individualistic than the humanism of ancient times.
>>1155085
>- May have met Pico della Mirandola in Italy in 1490. Unsure who influenced whom at this point in the inquiry
Given timeframes, I'd say Pico did most of the influencing, he'd already published on Kabbalah four years previous.
>>1145511
I'd be hard pressed to call study of Kabbalah by Christians "pre-Hermetic" if by Hermetic we mean principles through the Neoplatonic sphere of thought rather than late neoHermetics ala things like the new age movement.
>>1143826
As for Agrippa, that's a WONDERFUL question...it seems he had access to huge amounts of information we're not sure how he came across. When listing various infernal powers of earth, he actually goes so far as to list an obscure Mandaean angel of logos...and we're not sure how he even became aware of them. If I were a betting man, I'd say there was some form of Gnostic survival that sublimated a good deal of its knowledge into the sources Agrippa drew from.
>>1156510
And finally for those interested in early and contemporary Kabbalistic scholarship from core texts to analysis thereon, I'll leave you guys my folder:
https://mega.nz/#F!IFxSnZBZ!bYj2MDaEbONbZbeKhpkh4w
>>1156489
>>1156510
>>1156523
OP Here
Thank You. Your input is most gracious.
I will consider it carefully as go on.
Why here? I am forced to maintain a calm rational demeanor and present decidedly difficult material in a coherent fashion. How is that for BS? It is however true. I am a layperson. Even though I am well read for a layperson, I have never taken the time to look at the material in a step-by-step approach. I have failed to make haste slowly and have thereby made waste in said haste.
Why here? (2) On the off chance that persons, such as yourself, might engage in worthwhile discussion about the material. Given the nature on 4chan discussions, it was long shot, but here YOU are. I may shift the discussion to /x/ later. It takes longer for a thread to fall off.
Hermetic
I have always broken the material down into three eras, Jewish, Christian and Hermetic. I have always thought of Hermetic as Levi / Waite onwards. I understand why you refer to the “Modern” era as Neo-Hermetic. I also understand the Platonic (Hellenist) influences (in general) on Judaism in the late and post second Temple eras, but I have not personally tracked down the lineage back to Hermes Trismegitus, Egypt, Moses, et al.
I am having way too much fun, but staying focused on one area at a time is difficult. I was looking into the Exodus when I decided to return to this line of study. After decades, I picked back up Scholem and Regardie and jumped right in. Here we are.
Thanks for the bump. Posting here every 9 or 10 hours is a chore but it keeps me focused on the material.
(1/2)
The original "Tree of Life" aka the Ten Sefirot was a creation of a 13th century Jew named Moses de Leon. Although there was probably some sort of revelation experienced by de Leon, Kabbalah was primarily politically motivated. Due to the embracing of Greek philosophical ideas by prominent Jewish figures such as Maimonides, Kabbalah's (highly irrational) mysticism was perceived by many Jews as a kind of "anti-philosophy," a return to more purely Jewish roots and a push against the Hellenization visible in then-popular Jewish theology. The movement maintained a following for centuries due to this, its sizable amount of (fascinating) Torah interpretation and general theology, and its ability to basically go unnoticed by the rabbinic majority (nearly all early Kabbalah rituals are identical to 'normal' Jewish practice.)
The basic idea of the Ten Sefirot is that they describe both symbolically and actually the body of God, which I think is where the term Tree of Life came from. The name of each Sefir is understood to be a characteristic of God's personality. In search of some kind of personal divinity, the early Kabbalists were attempting to achieve these characteristics themselves, although later Kabbalist thought would state that only the first two Sefir (Malkhut and Yesod) were achievable by non-divine entities. Honestly, just read Gershom Scholem's book on Kabbalah + his translation of the Zohar and you'll have a great understanding of the movement, the man is an A1 scholar.
(2/2)
When the Zohar was ""rediscovered"" (quotes because it never actually stopped having a following) by American audiences, the New Age crowd was unsurprisingly enamored with the complex theological systems and mystifying, somewhat vague content found in the text. An American Kabbalah movement soon picked up traction, particularly in Hollywood. The reason they're so made fun of imo is because most of them forget to include the Judaism, which is pretty fucking stupid since at its core, Kabbalah is a method of exegetic Torah interpretation. However, new religious movements in America are pretty resistant to that yucky "organized religion" stuff, so what you're left with are vague statements about the possibility of union between the divine and humans without any of the text these idea are derived from.
>>1159678
OP Here
Thank you very much ANON for taking the time to comment. I am going to talk through this.
(1/1) The 10 Sefirot were among the 32 Paths of Wisdom in the” Sepher Yetzirah” (3rd-6th cent.), centuries earlier than Moses de Leon. The Sefirot in “Sefer Yetzirah” were not given all the attributes the way they were later in the Zohar. I am familiar with the emanations of Sefirot explained within the Zohar and in later Christian (New Age (Mathers, Regardie, Crowley, et al)) Kabbalah. My primary inquiry regards the changes to the attributes that the Sefirot and the Paths on the Tree of Life underwent between the Jewish Tree and the Christian Tree.
Note: Moses de León (Moshe ben Shem-Tov) (c. 1250 (Leon, Spain) – 1305 (Arevalo))
Considered the author and/or redactor of the Zohar (1280-1286) while living in Guadalajara.
- I use “Kabbalah” (Jerusalem, 1974) by Scholem as my go to primary source. (*copyright info (1966) in my first post was wrong*)
- I have worked with Mathers’ translation of The Zohar in the past (The Kabbalah Unveiled, London, 1888). I currently use “The Zohar: annotations to the Ashlag commentary”, 1st Ed. Michael Laitman, (2007 Toronto) AND “The Book of Zohar: Introduction” at www.thebookofzohar.com (no date, pdf retrieved 2016)
(pic: Title page 1st printed Zohar, 1558)
>>1159681
OP Here
(2/2)
The (New Age) “rediscovery” of the Zohar was through the English translation by Mathers in England and the various writings A.E. Waite’s and his co-authoring of the Waite-Rider Tarot Deck. I consider the New Age to have begun in Europe decades before Crowley popularized “The Occult” with his antics in the early 20th century (20s & 30s). Crowley is the only prominent recognizable public figure whose legacy survives to this day in the public conscious. Mathers, Westcott, Blavatsky, Waite and others were known in Europe and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, but it is Crowley’s legacy that continued to the era of Led Zeppelin.
>The reason they're so made fun of imo is because most of them forget to include the Judaism.
The Christianization of the Kabbalah began centruies before its arrival in the United States (Mirandola, Agrigga, et al).
I have not discussed Eliphas Levi (nee Alphonse Louis Constant (1810-1875 Paris)) because I have never studied him or his knowledge of the Zohar. Yes, he is a big deal in the later story, but I do not know yet. I will get there.
Once again ANON, thank you for your thoughtful reply.
*****
So. How did we get from A to B? The Jewish Tree and the attributes of the paths underwent change and became the Christian (New Age) Tree.
(pic: Aleister Crowley, failed K2 expedition, 1902)
OP Here
Reading Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463 Mirandola - 1494 Florence) "Oration on the Dignity of Man" (1486). I'll be back.
OP Here
It is no wonder the Church was not pleased with Mirandola and others Humanists. It also adds flavor to the story knowing that Lorenzo de Medici was his patron for a time. Imagine the Church Fathers reacting to this:
>"If, however, you see a philosopher, judging and distinguishing all things according to the rule of reason, him shall you hold in veneration, for he is a creature of heaven and not of earth; if, finally, a pure contemplator, unmindful of the body, wholly withdrawn into the inner chambers of the mind, here indeed is neither a creature of earth nor a heavenly creature, but some higher divinity, clothed in human flesh."
>>1150755
You are an idiot. Fucking tripfaggots
Page 11?
OP Here
Can't wait lest the descendants of Abraham bump this thread.
Upgrading Windows
My PC will restart several times.
Is Agrippa is the key? Why have I not seen this discussed openly? I'll definitely be back (after Bill Gates takes over computer for a couple hours)
>pic Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola
OP Here...
Disregard that, I suck cocks.
