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To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.divination,alt.magick
From: hara 
Subject: Gematria, Language, and Kabbalah (was Numerology question)
Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 20:05:29 GMT

50010613 VI! om Hail Shaitan!

hara:
>> you know, I used to think this was Hebrewphilia, and to a certain extent
>> it is, but more often I think I agree with sri catyananda in that it is
>> an attempt (or the leftover of attempts) to co-opt Jewish culture for
>> the purposes of Christian competition in religion and mysticism.

> is it possible for a jew to co-opt jewish culture?

I was talking with my (Jewish) wife about this and she and I agreed
that it depends on what you mean by the question, but that, yes it
is certainly possible. someone Jewish by genetics or birth, for
example, but unfamiliar with the religious or even general Jewish 
culture could co-opt Jewish culture to their own ends or participate
in such a co-option by Christians or others.

someone Jewish in religion could co-opt Kabbala toward their own
purposes if they had no relationship to the tradition of kabbalism
inherent to Judaism and either created their own "Khabbala" or
began a participation in some alternative (Cabala, Qabala(h),
Qaballa, etc.).

consider Israel Regardie. one could make the case that this was
what he was doing (participating in the co-option of Kabbala
toward Hermetic goals (Golden Dawn, later Crowleyism), and yet 
he was Jewish by name and genetics/culture as far as I know. 
Regardie edited out Crowley's text in "777" which was 
anti-Jewish and offensive to him.

>>> or associate numbers with english letters,
>>> the entire process is arbitrary.
>>
>> nothing arbitrary about the sequence A-Z or 1-26; neither is there 
>> anything arbitrary about A-I/J-R/S-Z and 1-9/10-90/100-800, which 
>> system is used in Hebrew (and apparently Greek) gematria.

> arbitrary in that with english the letter and number symbols are 
> different, you can correspond them however you'd like, and with 
> hebrew the letters and numbers are the same symbol. the 
> letter/number association is built into the system.

while I agree that the letters were and are used as numbers, there
is, as far as I know, no absolute way to identify letter-number
correspondences except through traditional selection. for example,
Stan Tenan (an interesting Jewish fellow whose expostulations on
Hebrew letters, their origins, and the signicance of Torah text 
and that of Kabbalists are very intriguing) wanted to assign
numbers to the letters, he chose to use the modern 27 letter
alphabet (5 final letters) and pair them with a TRINARY system
beginning with zero because of his interest in spatial coordinates.
he regards the initial aleph not as a formal letter at all, but
as a composite of Beth and Tzadde. there are alternatives. 

combine with this the fact that the simultaneous usage of letters
and numbers occurs in other cultures (e.g. the Greek, which also
used gematria, about which we are speaking and perhaps the
precursors to this type of Jewish numerolinguistic) and you start
having to select not only a system of assignment but also a
LANGUAGE. why select Hebrew rather than Greek, for example?
why select either rather than an older one that used gematria,
or one that did not?
 
> ...personally I think the difference is significant.

why? after all, you have the ADDED complication, where Hebrew is
concerned, with the assignment of *meanings to the letters
themselves*. that is, UNLIKE ENGLISH (for the most part), each
of the letter names is also a word with a meaning. this is
arguably *complicating* to the numerolinguistic, and significant
toward selecting something else. of course these types of
selections are individual and one might just as easily consider
this facet of the Hebrew alphabet to be an *advantage*. :>

>> confirmation of my previous hypothesis regarding Jewish competition.
>> if you really wanna go BACK, go to Sanskrit or something.

> why?  why not go back to my own roots, my man? are only orthodox 
> jews worthy of jewish qabala?  

spelling and reference gave me clues to the faction from which
you appeared to be hailing (Hermetic). I provided a means of
going back along LINGUISTIC lines, because some of the oldest
extant Indo-European writings are to be found today in Sanskrit
and there are ways of making the leap with what is today known
about that language.

now you are asking about going back along GENETIC (or at least 
CULTURAL) lines. if you are Jewish, then that is a quite
legitimate way of attempting to return to 'earlier' systems 
so as to negotiate your gematria. at that point it becomes
important to consider which version of Hebrew you are going to
use, how to translate so that your result is convincing, etc.

not only this, there is an entire social edifice in place to
assist you in actual KABBALA, rather than merely gematria,
though I gather you have to be male, over a certain age (40?),
and maybe a practicing Jew in order to enter into instruction.
perhaps you are already such an individual, I cannot know this.

I have been informed by sources that I trust that Orthodox
Jews are as worthy of practicing Kabbala as any others. :>
the question becomes why are you suggesting Robert Wang,
if your background and interests are not predominantly
Hermetic (as the Golden Dawn with which Wang appears to be
primarily associated). don't get me wrong, I like Wang's
expression very much, but I don't know him to be reliable
as far as Jewish Kabbalah is concerned. try Scholem, Halevi,
or even source documents like Luria, or better, Zohar, and
commentaries by Rabbis on same. gematria is one thing, and
Kabbalah appears to be much more than this.

see this was really a discussion about NUMEROLOGY, as I under-
stand it, and while Qabalah (Hermetic) may be focussed on
gematria (half the time identifying itself as such), the
original in Judaism is far more extensive than this, which
was my primary point in responding to you previously.

> besides, sanskrit has no meaning to me other than what 
> I've learned from the western co-opting of that culture, 
> so how is it any better?

while I appreciate your point, I think that there is less
of a history of twisting and re-interpretation of ideas
expressed in Sanskrit (i.e. Vedic, Buddhist) for the purpose
of internecine contention (Christian and Hermetic attempts
to turn Jewish culture, ideas, and people toward Christianity 
is very longstanding), while the same probably started in any
seriousness with regard to Sanskrit and ancient Indian culture
with Theosophy and its like -- corrections encouraged here.

> I appreciate you reacting against glomming on to some system 
> that's been bastardized by western magicians, but I am an 
> arabic jew, qabala has some meaning to me.  

what does "arabic jew" mean? since you're focussing on your
cultural or genetic background, could you elaborate some?

> and, I think it should be open to all who have the desire 
> and commitment to study it.  

take that up with Kabbalists. ;>

> I agree with arguments that new systems that people create 
> on their own can be much more powerful than some watered 
> down old system with no personal meaning, but saying
> go to sanskrit rather than hebrew doesn't make any sense to me.

I hope you see I was merely responding regarding linguistics,
not presuming anything about your cultural heritage or
genetic background. ;>

nagasiva