Saw this on Facebook. Is it true, /his/?
>>892787
>occult university library
You know better, anon.
>>892787
I can't say I know much about occult traditions, but almost all of the Jewish ones would have come from Egyptian, Canaanite or Mesopotamian earlier traditions.
So I'd have to say I'm skeptical of his point.
>>892787
Yes. Most of it comes from Kabbalah. That's because most pagan esoteric traditions were completely obliterated, or transformed by the Church.
Jews however, were somewhat tolerated, and allowed to practice Judaism even in Christian societies. Because Jews lacked the same kind of central authority of the Church and were allowed to exist, this let them have esoteric traditions not found elsewhere in the Western world.
Because of this, it was the only secret esoteric knowledge that was permissible to study as well, because Judaism was the root of Christianity.
>>892787
A lot Jewish stuff is borrowed from Platonic and Pythagorean concepts. I remember reading a book on Kabbalah by a Jewish researcher who says it had it's origin in Gnostic and Platonic understandings.
All of this would have happened during the period of Hellenization where Greek culture was being spread.
Rabbis like to say Judaism is super awesome at everything so they tend to exaggerate things.
>>892787
What the fuck, that's Melechesh's album art for "The Epigenesis"
And no its not true at all, the lynchpin of jew magic (gematria) was overtly lifted from ancient egypt
>>892787
Not really. Sure a lot comes from Judaism, but the Jews themselves took it from Mesopotamia and ultimately from Sumeria. Why honor the Kikes for it, and not the Sumerians, or the Greeks who acted as the middlemen between Judaism and the West?
>>892787
So there's a lot to unpack here.
I imagine that paragraph does nothing for the chapter or even the few pages it appears in.
Quite frankly, much of Western esoterica can, for good or ill, be traced back to the influence the Mandean cults had on the rest of the Euro Mediterranean (format of evokation, implications of language, etc., etc., etc.).
Today the Mandeans are in Iran but can indeed trace their ancestry back to Israel with some migration outward having taken place before the rise of Lurianic Kabbalah.
>>892799
Well, that's not really a thing either. There's synchretism, sure, but the Hekhalot and Merkavah material, which predates what we call Kabbalah, is certainly a syncretized form of mysticism that draws on both outside and internal factors.
>>892802
You'd be surprised at how much Neoplatonism actually stuck around under the guise of both Christism and the pagans they sought to convert.
>>892810
Lurianic Kabbalah is indeed what happens when Jewish mysticism contacts the greater Hellenic mysticism but Hebrew mysticism does not start or end with Lurianic Kabbalah.
>>892821
>but the Jews themselves took it from Mesopotamia and ultimately from Sumeria
see
>>892832
If we break down Hebrew mysticism into a timeline, we get:
>Merkavah>Apocalyptica+Hekhalot>Lurianic Kabbalah
^Roughly, you'll be hard pressed to find scholars with consensus; anyhow, the injection of large hunks of Mesopotamian/Sumerian/Egyptian seems to have mostly taken place in the Hekhalot/Apocalyptic period; where things go from a distinctly Hebrew sort of visionary shamanism to an almost yogalike structure before going Hellenic in the late Lurianic period.
>>892842
>see
This isn't true tho, huge parts of Jewish mysticism are taken directly from Egyptian and Mesopotamian sources, starting with stories like the flood and ending with the very concept of monotheism itself, and the influence of Greek is also incredibly obvious and profound, starting with the idea of salvation and ending with esoteric concepts from hermeticism and gnosticism. And this process was ongoing, it didn't end with the Exile, Judaism remained open to influence until after the establishment of Christianity as a rival sect.
>>892832
>You'd be surprised at how much Neoplatonism actually stuck around under the guise of both Christian and the pagans they sought to convert.
Also if you want to take it literally, he says all Western forms of spiritualism and mysticism have Jewish roots. All forms of Christianity have Jewish roots, so it's true, it doesn't matter if it had other roots as well, or if Jews plagiarized shit.
Talking about esoteric traditions, not old things that existed before Christianity becoming part of mainstream Christianity.
There's a difference.
>>892787
To an extent it is true but nowhere near to the degree the image suggests.
Much of the esoteric traditions that emerged post 14th century were by and large Christian spins on Kabbalistic thought. This is not to say that Kabbalistic thought existed in a vacuum. It certainly did not and many of the later developments can be seen as responses to the emerging face of esoteric thought as a Christian phenomena.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u49RqrbO5DI
>>892872
I'm not disagreeing that large hunks of Hebrew mysticism were borrowed, obviously from the Genizah fragments of 800 AD forward which already crystallized the long dead Mesopotamian influence into coherent structures which would be preserved as Hekhalot mysticism slowly came into contact with Gnosticism.
I'm only saying it's a timeline and to treat Judaic mysticism as completely borrowed or completely monolithic is goofy in the face of how much source material and academic analysis thereof we have.
To see what I'm talking about compare material like Hekhalot Rabbati or the Genizah Fragments which have a weird almost Indic flavor underneath the near eastern influence, against Zohar and the material leading into and after it; you'll see Zohar has WAY more Gnostic influence compared to the middle or even late Hekhalot tradition.
https://mega.nz/#F!IFxSnZBZ!bYj2MDaEbONbZbeKhpkh4w
>>892927
>hexenhammer
I remember you.
>>892932
I doubt it, I've never posted one of his vids before. You have a problem with him as an authority on the occult?
>>892928
yah. The Zohar diverges strongly from the Kabbalistic traditions that existed in Castile the century prior.
>>892917
^This guy knows what he's on about.
The Platonic Academy in Florence was a touchpoint for the transmission of Lurianic Kabbalah into the great Christian field of thought:
>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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_Academy_(Florence)
>>892936
I I thought you were him himself. He passed me my copy of Steiner's Occult Significance of Blood. He can be an authority all day long and I'll disagree with aspects as much as I like, as I can with any other authority, but it Crowley or Aryeh Kaplan.
>>892937
^^^^^^^^^ Bingo.
