And I would say the same of the pretended Kabbalistic work of Herrera. This Spanish rabbi, remarkable for his philosophical erudition, was not content to substitute the modern traditions of the school of Isaac Luria 35 for the true principles of the Kabbalah; but he found also the secret of disfiguring these principles by mingling with them the ideas of Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Avicenna and Pico de la Mirandola--in short, all that he knew of the Greek and Arabian philosophy.
Modern historians of philosophy have taken chiefly Herrera for their guide in the interpretations of the Kabbalah, probably because of the didactic order of his dissertations and the precision of his language. And as such a guide has been accepted, no wonder that quite recent origin.
Luria's school. Finally, since the author of the "Kabbalah Denudata" was not willing to adhere to the most ancient sources and to acquaint us through more numerous quotations with the originality and interesting facts hidden in the Zohar, why this predilection for the commentaries of Isaac Luria, which no one in possession of his reason can stand reading? Would not the sacrifices and the laborious vigils which, by the author's own avowals, it cost him to bring to light those sterile chimeras, have been better employed upon the long chain of Kabbalists still too little known, beginning at Saadia, around the tenth century, and ending with the thirteenth century at Nachmanides?
In this way, by including all the traditions composing the Zohar, we would have had before our eyes the entire chain of Kabbalistic traditions, starting with the moment when they were first written down until the point when their secret was completely violated by Moses de Leon.
Despite its gaps and its numerous imperfections, Rosenroth's conscientious labor will stand forever as a monument of patience and erudition, and it will be consulted by all who will want to know the products of thought among the Jews, or by those who wish to observe mysticism in all its forms and in all its results.
It is owing to his deeper knowledge of the Kabbalah, that this doctrine has ceased to be studied exclusively either as an instrument of conversion or as an occult science.
It has taken a place in philosophical and philological research, in the general history of philosophy and in rational theology which has attempted by its light to expound some of the difficult passages of the New Testament. He was a doctor, a philosopher and, more than all, a Kabbalist.
The first whom we see taking this direction is George Wachter, theologian and distinguished philosopher, who, because of the independence of his mind, was falsely accused of Spinozaism, and who was the author of an attempt to reconcile the two sciences to which he had consecrated equal devotion.
He foolishly challenged Wachter to imitate him and engaged with him in a correspondence from which sprang a little book entitled "Spinozaism in Judaism. The book does not throw much light upon the nature or upon the origin of the Kabbalistic ideas, but it raises a question of the highest interest: Was Spinoza initiated in the Kabbalah, and what influence did this doctrine exert upon his system? Until then it was the almost general opinion among scholars that there is quite a close affinity between the most important points of the science of the Kabbalists and the fundamental dogmas of the Christian religion.
Wachter undertook to demonstrate that these two orders of ideas are separated by an abyss; for, in his opinion, the Kabbalah is nothing but atheism, the negation of God and the deification of the world, a doctrine which he believed to be that of the Dutch philosopher and to which Spinoza gave a more modern form.
We need not investigate here whether the two systems, per se, are well or ill-judged, but whether there is some ground for the theory of their affinity or for their historical succession. The sole proof given for I do not count more or less far-fetched analogies and resemblances consists of two very important passages, indeed, one drawn from "Ethics," the other from Spinoza's letters.
Paul, like all the philosophers of antiquity, although I express myself in a different way, and I even dare to add: like all the ancient Hebrews, as far as can be judged by certain of their traditions which have been altered in.
The passage from "Ethics" is still more decisive. Having spoken of the unity of substance, Spinoza adds: "It is this principle which some of the Hebrews seem to have perceived as through a cloud when they thought that God, the Intelligence of God and the objects under the action of that intelligence, as of one and the same thing. This is designated by the following terms: the thought, he who thinks and that which is thought of. God's way of knowing does not really consist in applying His thought to things outside of Himself.
It is by cognizing and knowing Himself that He also cognizes and knows all that exists. Nothing exists that is not united with Him and which He could not find in His own substance. He is the prototype of all Being, and in Him all things exist in the purest and most accomplished form; so that the perfection of the creatures is in this very existence by virtue of which they find themselves united with the source of their being; and in measure as they deviate from it, they sink from that sublime and perfect state.
What conclusion can be drawn from these words? Is it that the ideas and the Carthesian method, that the altogether independent development of reason, and above all, that individual estimates as well as the errors of genius, count for nothing in the most audacious conception of which the history of modern philosophy can give an example?
This would be a strange paradox which we would not even attempt to refute. Moreover, it is easy to see by the very citations given as authority, that Spinoza had but a very summary and uncertain idea of the Kabbalah, the importance. How could such a work be more atheistic than theistic?
Would it not teach pantheism rather than one God distinct from the world? Above all, how had it taken in the "Ethics" the form of severe unity, the inflexible vigor of the exact sciences? But we must do Wachter the justice to say that he modified his opinions considerably in a second volume on the same subject. Elucidarius Cabbalisticus, Rome, , 8 vo. Thus, according to him, Spinoza is no longer the apostle of atheism, but a true savant who, enlightened by a sublime science, recognized the divinity of Christ and all the truths of the Christian religion.
The first Christians, the oldest fathers of the Church, had no other philosophy; 45 and it is this philosophy which led Spinoza upon the road of Truth. The author stubbornly insists upon this point and makes it the centre of his researches.
Though in its entirety very superficial, and at times far from accurate, this parallel between the doctrine of Spinoza and that of the Kabbalists. It would be absurd to wish to apply this phrase to the Kabbalists in general. Hebraeorum sectarentur. Quos inter memorandus mihi est Benedictus de Spinoza, qui ex philosophiae hujus rationibus, divinitatem Christi atque circa veritatem universae religionis christianae agnovit.
That parallel led to an examination which proved that the theory which had caused so much surprise and scandal, the theory that God is an unique substance and the immanent cause and real nature of all that is, was not new, that it appeared already before, at the cradle of Christianity, under the very name of the religion.
But this idea is also met with somewhere in a no less remote antiquity. Where, then, is the origin of this idea to be looked for? Is it Greece, or Egypt of the Ptolomaeans that have given it to Palestine? Is it Palestine which found it first? Such are the questions which occupied the minds primarily, and such also is the meaning attached to the Kabbalistic traditions since that time by all save a few critics who are peculiarly attentive to nothing but form.
It is no longer a question of a certain method of interpretation applied to Holy Writ, nor of mysteries far beyond reason, which God Himself revealed whether to Moses, to Abraham or to Adam, but it is a question of a purely human science, of a system representing within itself the entire metaphysics of an ancient people, and, therefore, of great interest to the history of the human mind, once more a philosophical viewpoint that dislodged Allegory and Mysticism.
This spirit is shown not only in Brucker's exposition, where it is perfectly in place, but it seems also to be generally prevalent. Thus, in a learned association, the Society for the Investigation of Antiquities at Cassel, opened an academic competition on the following topic: "Does the doctrine of the Kabbalists, according to which all things are engendered by the emanation of the very essence of God, come from the Greek philosophy or not?
The work which carried off the prize--very little known and not deserving to be known--certainly does not cast any new light upon the very nature of the Kabbalah and what concerns the origin of this system, it contents itself with reproducing the most defaced fables.
Riga, , 8. It is less surprising when it is known that the author was of the sect of the Illuminati who, following the example of all such associations, dated its annals back to the very cradle of humanity. But Rational Theology--as it is called in Germany--that is that absolutely independent method of expounding the Holy Scriptures, of which Spinoza gave an example in his Theologic-Political tractat, made frequent use of the Kabbalah.
As I said before, it made use of it for the purpose of explaining divers passages in the letters of St. Paul which referred to the heresies of that day. It desired also to find therein the explanation of the first verses of the Gospel of St.
John, and tried to make it useful either for the study of Gnosticism or for the study of ecclesiastic history in general. There soon appeared the school of Hegel which could not fail to make use of a system wherein it found, under another form, some of its own doctrines.
A reaction against this ever famous school was surely not slow in coming, and it is evidently under this sentiment that the useless work "Kabbalism and Pantheism" was written. The author of that little book strives to prove, at the expense of the evidence, that there is no resemblance between the two systems which he undertakes to compare; for it often happens that the passages which he uses as bases of his arguments are diametrically opposed to the deductions he draws from them.
Besides, as far as erudition is concerned, he is far inferior to most of the writers who preceded him; and does not surpass them either by criticism of the sources or by philosophic appreciation of the ideas, not-withstanding the pedantic attire and luxury of citations with which he pleases to surround himself.
Finally, Herr Tholuck, a man who is justly entitled to eminent rank among the theologians and orientalists of Germany, recently also desired to contribute to this subject his knowledge and skilled criticism. But as he concerns himself with one particular point, the origin of the. Tholuck, de Ortu Cabbalae, , p.
Freystadt, Koenigsberg, Kabbalah, and as any appreciation of his opinions would demand profound discussion, I have reserved comment of him for the body of this work, as a more opportune time. This refers also to all the modern writers, whose names, although deserving a place here, have as yet not been mentioned. Such are, in substance, the efforts made until now for the discovery of the meanings and the origin of the Kabbalistic books.
I do not wish to have the conclusion drawn that all must be started anew again because one is struck only by those books which are incomplete. On the contrary, I am convinced, that the labors and even the errors of such distinguished minds can not be ignored without punishment to those wishing seriously to study the same subject.
Even were it possible, in fact, to approach the original monuments without any aid, it would, nevertheless, always be necessary to know beforehand the various interpretations which have been given to them to the present day; for each one of these correspond to a viewpoint well founded in itself, but which becomes faulty when one sticks to it exclusively. Thus has the Kabbalah--to corroborate what has just been said and to sum up briefly the foregoing--been accepted by some who had in view only its allegorical form and mystical character, with mystic enthusiasm as an anticipated revelation of Christian dogmas; others took it as an occult art, struck by the strange figure, the queer formulas under which it loves to hide its real intention, and by the relations it incessantly establishes between man and all parts of the universe; others, finally, took hold above all of its metaphysical principles and tried to find therein an antecedent, either honorable or dishonorable, of the philosophy of their times.
It is easy to understand that with partial and incomplete studies governed by various prejudices, one can find all this in the Kabbalah without necessarily contradicting the facts. But, in order to have an exact idea and to find the place which it really holds among works of intelligence, it should be studied neither in the interest of a system, nor in the interest of a religious belief; on the contrary, one will endeavor for the sake of truth only, to furnish to the general history of human thought some elements as yet too little known.
This is the aim I desire to reach in the following work for which I spared neither time nor research. Although one finds in the Kabbalah a complete system on things of a moral and spiritual order, yet it can not be considered either as a philosophy or as a religion; I mean to say, it rests, apparently at least, neither upon reason nor upon inspiration or authority.
Like most of the systems of the Middle Ages, it is the fruit of the union of these two intellectual powers. Essentially different from religious belief, under the power, and one can say, under the protection of which, it was born, it introduced itself, thanks to peculiar forms and processes, unnoticed into the minds. These forms and these processes would weaken the interest of which it is worthy, and would not always permit conviction of the importance which we believe to be justified in attributing to it, if, before making it known in its different elements and before attempting the solution of questions incident thereto, we do not indicate, with some precision, the place it occupies among the works of thought, the rank it should hold among religious beliefs and philosophic systems, and, finally, the requirements or laws which could explain the peculiar means of its development.
It is this we shall attempt to accomplish with all possible brevity. It is a fact, proven by the history of entire humanity, that moral truth, the knowledge which we can acquire about our nature, our destiny and the principle of the universe, were, at first, not accepted on the strength of reason or conscience, but by the effect of a power which was more active upon the minds of the people, and which has the general attribute of presenting to us ideas under a nearly material form, sometimes under the form of a word descended from heaven to human ears, sometimes in the form of a person who develops them in examples and actions.
This power, universally known as Religion or Revelation, has its revolutions and its laws; notwithstanding the unity that rules at the bottom of its nature, it changes its aspect, like philosophy, poetry and arts, with the centuries and countries. But, at what time and at what place this power may come to establish itself, it can not off-hand tell man all that which he needs to know, not even in the sphere of duties and beliefs which it imposes upon him, nor even when he has no other ambition but to understand it in so far as is necessary for his obeisance to it.
In fact, there are in all religions, dogmas which need to be explained, principles the consequences of which remain to be developed, laws without possible application, as well as questions totally forgotten which, surely, touch upon the most important interests of humanity.
The work of answering to all those needs calls for great mental activity; and the intellect, therefore, is impelled to the use of its own powers by the very desire to believe and obey. But this impulse does not produce everywhere the same results and does not act upon all intellects in the same manner.
Some intellects will not yield any place to individual independence; they drive the principle of authority to its last consequences, and set up, side by side with written revelation where nothing but. Of such are the orthodox of all beliefs. Other intellects trust no one but themselves, that is to say, their power of reasoning to fill these gaps and to solve the problems in the revealed word.
All authority other than that of the holy texts appears to them as an usurpation; or, if they do follow it, it is only when it is in accord with their personal feelings. Finally, there is in this sphere a third class of thinkers--those who do not admit tradition or, at least, whom tradition and authority can not satisfy, and who certainly can not or dare not use reasoning.
On the one hand they are too high-minded to admit the revealed word in a natural and historic sense which accords with the letter and spirit of the masses; on the other hand, they can not believe that man can dispense entirely with revelation, or that truth reaches him in any other way than by the effect of divine teaching.
It is principally by this method and by this tendency that the mystics are recognized. I do not say that mysticism did not show itself sometimes in a bolder form. At a time when philosophical habits had already held sway, mysticism finds in this very consciousness the divine action, the immediate revelation which it claims to be indispensable to man.
It recognizes it either in the feelings or in the intuitions of reason. Thus it is, to cite an example, how mysticism was conceived in the fifteenth century by Gerson. These three tendencies of the mind, these three ways of conceiving revelation and of continuing its work, are found in the history of all the religions that have struck roots in the human soul.
I shall cite only those religions which are nearest to us and which, therefore, we can know with more certainty. In the bosom of Christianity, the Roman Church represents tradition and authority in their highest degree of splendor.
We find reason applied to faith not only in the majority of Protestant communions, among the defenders of the so-called rational exegesis, but also among the scholastic philosophers who were the first to subject religious dogmas to the laws of syllogism and who showed the same respect for the words of Aristotle that they showed for the words of the Apostles. Who does not see symbolical mysticism with its arbitrary method and exaggerated spirituality in all the agnostic sects, in Origen, in Jacob Boehm, and in all who follow in their steps?
But no one carried the system as far, nobody formulated it as frankly and as boldly as Origen whose name we shall yet meet in this book.
If we glance at Mohammed's religion, if among the many sects it brought to light, we stop at those which show a decided character, we are immediately struck by the same spectacle.
The Sunnis and the Chiits, whose separation came from the rivalry of individuals rather than from a marked difference of opinion, equally defend the. Experientiis habitis ad intra, in cordibus animarum devotarum. Islamism had also its scholastic philosophers, known by the name of Motecallemin, 3 and it had also a large number of heresies which seem to have joined the doctrine of Pelagius to the rational method of modern Protestantism.
This is how a celebrated orientalist defined the latter: "All sects of the Mutazilahs agree generally in that they deny the existence of attributes in God, and they endeavor particularly to avoid everything that could injure the dogma of the unity of God; and then, in order to maintain the justice of God and ward off any idea of injustice from Him, they accord to man full liberty of his own actions and deny God all interference with them; finally, they agree in teaching that all the knowledge necessary to salvation is within the province of reason, and that it can be acquired solely by means of the light of reason before, as well as after, revelation.
The Karmates, whose existence dates from the year of the Hegira, embraced the system of allegorical interpretations and all the opinions serving as bases for mysticism. If we are to believe the author already quoted--who does nothing more than translate the words of an Arabian historian--"they called their doctrine the science of the inner faculties, and which consists in turning the precepts of Islamism into allegories and in substituting things founded on imagination for external observance, as well as allegorizing verses of the Koran and giving them forced interpretations.
The Karmathians hold that man's body, when standing,. So the p. Finally we come to Judaism, from whose breast, nourished by its spirit and its essence, sprang the two rival creeds already cited. We have intentionally reserved the last place for Judaism, because it leads us naturally to our subject.
Besides the Bible, orthodox Jews recognize traditions which receive from them the same respect as the precepts of the Pentateuch.
At first transmitted from mouth to mouth and scattered everywhere, then collected and edited by Judah the Holy 6 under the name of Mishnah; and, finally, prodigiously augmented and developed by the authors of the Talmud, they now leave not the smallest part to reason and liberty.
Not only do they deny in principle the existence of these two moral forces, but they strike them with paralysis by usurping their places everywhere. They cover all actions from the expression of exalted moral and religious feeling to the vilest functions of animal life. They have counted, regulated and weighed everything in advance. It is despotism of every day and of every instant against which one is inevitably compelled to fight with trickery if he does not want to substitute a higher authority in its place.
The Karaites, who must not be confounded with the Saducees whose existence does not reach beyond the destruction of the second temple the Karaites are, in a way, the Protestants of Judaism; they reject, apparently, the tradition and pretend to recognize nothing but the Bible, I mean the Old Testament, for the explanation of which reason seems to them to be sufficient. But others, without ceasing to be believers and admitting the principle of revelation, and who certainly form no religious sect, have succeeded in giving Reason a much greater and a much finer place in the domain of Faith.
These are they who would justify the chief articles of their belief by the very principles of Reason; who would reconcile the legislation of Moses with the philosophy of their times, that is that of Aristotle, and who have founded a science entirely similar in its name and in its objects to the Arabian and Christian scholastics. The first, and beyond a question the boldest of them, is the celebrated Rabbi Saadia, who at the beginning of the tenth century was at the head of the academy of Sura in Persia; and whose name is cited with respect.
So that his entire body represents the thrice-holy name, Jehovah. Zohar, 2nd part, fol. History of the religious sects of Judaism. Those among the Jews who saw in the law only a gross exterior under which was hidden a mysterious meaning, much higher than the historical, literal meaning, divided themselves into two classes, the distinction of which is of great importance to the aim we have set.
To one class, the inner, spiritual meaning of the Scriptures was a philosophical system somewhat favorable, it is true, to mystic exaltation, but drawn from a source entirely foreign; it was, in short, Plato's doctrine a little exaggerated, as it was later on in the school of Plotinus, and mingled with ideas of Oriental origin. This is the character of Philo and all those who are customarily called "Hellenizing Jews," because, mixed among the Greeks of Alexandria, they borrowed from the latter their language, their civilization, and such of their philosophic systems as could best reconcile with the monotheism and religious legislation of Moses.
The others obeyed the impulse of their intelligence only. The ideas they introduced into the sacred books, in order to make it appear that they had found them there, and then to pass them on in the shadow of. From the first lines of the preface Saadia frankly places himself between two opposing parties; "those," he said, "who, because of incomplete researches and ill-directed meditations, have fallen into an abyss of doubt; and those who regard the use of reason as dangerous to Faith. The Hebrew commentary attributed to Saadia is forged.
Rapaport, Biography of R. The author puts these words in the mouth of Aristobulus, who could not have known the Kabbalah. These are the Kabbalists 11 whose opinions must be drawn from original sources to be known and justly appreciated; because, later, cultured minds supposed that they honored them by mixing them with the ideas of the Greeks and Arabians. Those, who through superstition remained strangers to the civilization of their times, gradually abandoned the deep speculations of which they were the result, and conserved only the very gross means originally designed to disguise their boldness and depth.
First of all we shall try to determine near what time we find the Kabbalah fully formed, in what books it was preserved for us, how these books were formed and transmitted to us, and, finally, what foundation we can lay upon its authenticity.
We shall make an attempt to give of it a faithful and full account, to which we shall, as much as possible, make the authors themselves of this doctrine contribute; passing their language into ours with as much exactitude as our feeble means may permit.
At last, we shall occupy ourselves with the origin and influence of the Kabbalah, and ask whether it was born in Palestine, solely under the influence of Judaism, or, whether the Jews borrowed it from a foreign religion or a foreign philosophy. We shall compare it successively with all previous and contemporaneous systems which will offer us any resemblance to it; and we shall finally follow it to its most recent destinies.
First, it is almost certain that Philo was ignorant of Hebrew, a knowledge of which, as we shall soon see, is indispensable to the Kabbalistic method.
Then again, Philo and the Kabbalists differ no less in depth of their ideas. The latter admit p. The attributes of God, according to Philo, are Plato's ideas which have no resemblance whatever to the Sefiroth of the Kabbalah.
Philo, de Mund. Enthusiastic partisans of the Kabbalah declare it to have been brought down by angels from heaven to teach the first man, after his disobedience, the way to recover his primal nobility and bliss.
Since its origin, until its return from the Babylonian captivity, the Hebrew people, like all nations in their infancy, knew no other organs of truth, no other ministers to the mind, save the prophet, the priest and the poet; and in spite of the obvious difference among them, the latter is often confounded with the previous ones.
Instruction was not the province of the priest, he simply attracted the eye by the pomp of religious ceremonies. And as to the teachers, those, indeed, who raise the religion to the rank of Science and who replace the inspirational language with a dogmatic strain, in short, as to the theologians, there is no mention of either their name or their existence during that entire period.
It is only at the beginning of the third century before the Christian era that we first see them appear under the general name of Tannaim, which means teachers of the tradition; for it is in the name of this new power that everything, not clearly expressed in the Scriptures, was taught.
The Tannaim, the oldest and most respected of all teachers in Israel, formed, as it were, a long chain, the last link of which is Judah the Pious, editor of the Mishnah, who collected and transmitted to posterity all that has been uttered by his predecessors.
Among these are the supposed authors. Akkiba and Simeon ben Yohai, with his son and his friends. In the Mishnah Haggigah, Sec. II we find this remarkable passage: "The story of the Creation Genesis is not to be explained to two, the story of the Merkaba Heavenly Chariot not even to one, unless he be wise and can deduce wisdom of his own accord. Judah , where R. Hiya adds: "When the summaries of the chapters may be transmitted to him. A rabbi of the Talmud, R. Zerah ibid is still more severe, for he adds that even the summaries of the chapters may be divulged only to men clothed with high dignity, or 5 known by their extreme prudence; or, to translate literally the original expression, "who carry within them a heart full of solicitude.
Evidently this can not refer to the text of Genesis or to that of Ezekiel wherein the prophet tells of his vision on the banks of the river Hebar. Moses himself incessantly advised the study of the Law, by which the Pentateuch is universally understood.
After the return from the Babylonian captivity, Ezra read it aloud before the assembled people Ezra, II, 8. It is just as impossible that the words quoted express the interdiction to give any interpretation to the story of the creation and to that of Ezekiel for the purpose of making them comprehensible to oneself or to others; the question here is that of an interpretation, or rather of a doctrine, which, although known, was taught under the seal of mystery; of a science furnished with a fixed form as well as fixed principles, since we know the manner of its division and since it is shown to us divided into several chapters each one of which is headed by a summary.
For it is to be noted, that Ezekiel's vision has nothing in common with all this, because it fills not several chapters, but only one, and precisely the one which is first in the works attributed to this prophet.
Moreover, we see that this secret doctrine comprised two parts which have not been accorded equal importance; for the one part could not be taught to two persons, while the other could not be divulged at all, not even to one person, although he satisfied the severest conditions imposed upon him. Eliezer said: Adam reached primarily from earth to heaven; but after he sinned, the Holy One praised be He! Haggiga, fol. Here is another passage wherein the same fact is presented to us in a no less evident manner.
Johanan said to R. Eliezer: 'Come, I will teach thee the story of the Merkaba. Johanan died, and some time later R. Assi came to him and said: 'Come, I will teach thee the story of the Merkaba. Eliezer answered: 'Had I considered myself worthy, I would have learned it from R.
Johanan, thy Master'" Haggiga, 12a. Here is a curious example told by the Talmud itself, in an allegorical language which it afterwards explains. Ben Azai looked around and died. Ben Zoma also looked around and lost his reason. The Scriptures say of such as him: 'Hast thou found honey, eat so much as is sufficient for thee; lest thou be filled therewith and vomit it' Prov. XXV, Aher made ravages in the plantations.
Akkiba entered in peace and came out in peace. This passage can not possibly be taken literally, in the sense that it refers to a material vision of the splendors of another life; for, above all, the Talmud never uses the purely mystical terms of the text quoted when speaking of Paradise. We must, therefore, agree with the best reputed authorities of the Synagogue, that the Garden of Delight entered by the four doctors, is nothing else but the mysterious science spoken of before; 13 a science dangerous to weak intelligences, because it may lead them either to insanity or to errors more fatal than impiety.
It is this last result that the Gemara wishes to indicate when it says in speaking of Aher, that he made ravages in the plantations. It tells us that this person, so famous in Talmudic narrations, was before this one of the wisest teachers in Israel; his real name was Elishah ben Abuah, which was substituted by Aher to indicate the change in him. He abandoned himself, says the text, to the generation of evil 15 he lacked morals, betrayed his faith, led a scandalous life, and some people even accused him of the murder of a child.
Where, really, is his first error to be found? Whither have his researches into the most important secrets of religion led him? The Jerusalem Talmud plainly states that he recognized two supreme principles, 16 and the Babylonian Talmud, from which we have taken the whole of this story, gives us to understand the same thing.
It informs us that when Aher saw in the heavens the power of Metatron, the angel next to God, 17 he exclaimed: "Perhaps there are, far be it, two supreme powers. We need not dwell too long upon this portion of our subject, for we must cite other, more significant facts; yet, we can not refrain from remarking that the angel, or rather the hypostasis called Metatron, plays a very great part in the Kabbalistic system.
It is he, properly speaking, who governs this visible world; he reigns over all the spheres swinging in space, over all the planets and celestial bodies, as well as over all the angels who conduct them; for above him is nothing but the intelligible. Gemaricus, p. According to the Kabbalists, the. Jellinek rather than that of the author, as.
Every true kabbalwh who has control of the universal laws can become a Kabbalist by acquiring knowledge of the practical Kabbalah. The structures of the Kabbalah cited in numerous books are quite suitable for the theorist who wants to get an idea of the lawfulness of the Kabbalah, but they are thoroughly insufficient as regards that practice which promises knowledge of the correct application of the powers of the Word.
To whatever sphere he directs this language, there shall his utterance be realized. In India, for instance, a person who immediately realizes every spoken word is called a vag. In Kundalini Yoga this power and ability is identified with the Visuddha Chakra. Since, with his microcosmic language, he is representing the kahbalah, a true Kabbalist will never violate the laws of harmony. To achieve this maturity and pinnacle of Kabbalistic initiation the theurgist must first learn his letters like a child.
In order to form words and sentences with them and, in time, to speak in the cosmic language, he must have a complete command of them. The methodology involved in this learning is dealt with in the practical part of this book.
Anyone, no matter which religious system he may adhere to, can occupy himself with the true Kabbalah, theoretically as well as practically. The Kabbalistic science is not a privilege of those who profess the Jewish faith. Hebrew scholars affirm that the Kabbalah is of Jewish origin, bagdon in the Jewish mystical tradition itself the knowledge of the Kabbalah is said to be of ancient Egyptian origin.
In my book, I [Franz Bardon] explain the synthesis of Bardin only so far as is absolutely necessary for truw practice. The term Kabbalah has often been abused by degrading it to a game of numbers, horoscopic assessments, name analogies and various other mantic devices. As the reader will learn from the practical part of this book, numbers do have a certain relationship to letters, although this is one of ths lowest aspects of the Kabbalah, and one which we do not wish to deal with here.
In my first book, Initiation into Hermetics, I [Franz Bardon] divided man into three regions — body, soul and spirit. It will also become clear that the physical body is kept alive by food the condensed substance of the elementswhile the astral body is sustained by breathing. The aspiring Kabbalist must understand these concepts thoroughly and, if he seriously wishes to study the Kabbalah, must be able to gain a clear picture of these processes in his own body.
Readers are gradually led to an understanding of the logical design of the Universe and the life whose home it is. The Science of Kabbalah, a revolutionary work that is unmatched in its clarity, depth, and appeal to the intellect, will enable readers to approach the more technical works of Baal HaSulam Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag , such as Talmud Eser Sefirot and Zohar.
Although scientists and philosophers will delight in its illumination, laymen will also enjoy the satisfying answers to the riddles of life that only authentic Kabbalah provides.
Now, travel through the pages and prepare for an astonishing journey into the 'Upper Worlds' Kabbalah Books aims to follow what Baal HaSulam directed, that redeeming the world from its plights depends solely on disseminating the correction method, as he wrote "We are in a generation that is standing at the very threshold of redemption, if we will only know how to spread the wisdom of the hidden in the masses.
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