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To: alt.magick From: catherine yronwodeSubject: Re: Pagan Kabbalah Date: Fri, 07 Dec 2001 00:14:47 GMT Gnome d Plume wrote: > > On Wed, 05 Dec 2001 19:42:47 GMT, Rick wrote: > > > What value, do you consider, is there in adopting the > > correspondences and symbolism of foreign cultures and > > long-since-past eras? > > it is better to anchor yourself in a system that draws > from ancient archetypes and symbols that have been perfected by your > culture through the ages than to merely swallow your own psychic > saliva, with all the personal errors, omissions and distortions that > might entail. Then, pleae note, you are addressing a roomful of people here in alt.magick who (with a few exceptions, such as the Asians among us) come from European and European-American sucltures which "through the ages" have been primarily Jewish and Christian. So why tell these people -- including the many Jews here -- that you will "liberate" them from their "parochial" cultural baggage and "rectify" the Jewish Kabbalah into something pagan? Don't you see that paganism, and particularly the Assyro-Babylonian religion which you endorse, represents a cultural symbol-system about which most contemporary Jewish and Christian Americans know nothing and to which they have no "ancient" ties? There is an arrogance here, Poke, that disturbs me. Not only are you running farther with the "Assyrian roots" theme than is justified by the archaeological and textual evidence, you are disrespecting (as hi has been pointing out) the actual rabbinical sources of the kabbalah you claim to be "rectifying." To "rectify" means to remove an error or to correct. As a Jew, i am very tired of hearing that my culture's mystical tradition needs "correction" by an outsider, no matter how erudite. I am going to propose an analogy here that may make sense to you: We all know that the trumnpet, the saxophone, and the clarinet were European band instruments, originating in Europe, by Europeans, and designed for Europeans to play their culturally stylized music -- and we all know that jazz music originated in the African-American community. Anyone who claimed that jazz "originated in Europe" would be laughed at. Anyone who claimed that jazz needs to be "rectified" by European performers would be laughed at. Likewise, with the kabbalah: Sacred tree imagery can be found throughout the ancient Middle East and numerical-linguistic association schemes of various sorts date back to the invention of alphabetic language -- but despite this, the kaballah is Jewish. It was created and developed by Jewish rabbis to shed light upon the mysteries of the Jewish religion. To claim otherwise is laughable. To claim that the kabbalh requires "recrification" by non-Jews is laughable. The Jewish big band leader Artie Shaw played pretty fancy jazz clarinet -- but he stood in the same relationship to the great African-American New Orleans jazz clarinetist George Lewis that you do to Rabbi Isaac Luria: an embellisher, a follower, an exponent, and an excellent developer -- of somebody else's riffs. At least he had the good grace to admit it. Now, as to the WORD kabbalah, i think this is where a great deal of antagonism arises. This name -- KABBALAH -- is something that the non-Jews want very badly to possess. In my life and through my reading, i have seen dozens of non-Jews create all manner of non-Jewish numero-linguistic correspondence schemes and mystical emanation systems in the service of all manner of non-Jewish gods -- but they all insisted on using the word KABBALAH to describe what they did. Why do you think that is? What is it about the word KABBALAH that is so valuable? Note also that now we see how angry Hindus are becomming at the way that contemporary non-Hindus create all manner of non-Hindu sex-religion schemes and chakra systems in the service of all manner of non-Hindu gods -- but they all insist on using the word TANTRA YOGA to describe what they do. Why do you think that is? What is it about the word TANTRA that is so valuable? I submit that a great deal of what is going on with the "pagan kabbalah" and "cChristian kabbalah" and so forth is not and has always been a struggle over brand name recognition. In support of this belief, i submit that you must have noticed by now that people get mad at you for promoting your mystical system under the same name their culture has used to describe their own mystical system for centuries. Take a tip from Artie Shaw. He called what he did BIG BAND MUSIC, not jazz. He knew something you would do well to learn. Give it another name, Poke. Tell your students, truthfully, that in creating your system, you draw from the kabbalah and from pagan sources -- but leave off the bit about Judaism being a "parochial" religion and leave off the part about "rectifying" Jewish mysticism as if it were inferior or errant, and leave off using the word kabbalah ... and pass in peace. cat yronwode Hoodoo in Theory and Practice -- http://www.luckymojo.com/hoodoo.html Path: typhoon.sonic.net!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3C11A8CB.7C3E@luckymojo.com> From: catherine yronwode Reply-To: info@luckymojo.com Organization: Lucky Mojo Curio Co. X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01-C-MACOS8 (Macintosh; I; PPC) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.magick Subject: Re: Pagan Kabbalah References: <3c0e5a09.2461316@trialnews.peoplepc.com> <3C0E7927.349AA40@earthlink.net> <3c0eea42.39388058@trialnews.peoplepc.com> <3C100C74.22D5@luckymojo.com> <3c1122eb.32078543@trialnews.peoplepc.com> <01c17f34$1b239bf0$d8865f18@federalist> <3c110314.3969563@trialnews.peoplepc.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 136 Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2001 05:34:06 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.204.142.134 X-Complaints-To: abuse@sonic.net X-Trace: typhoon.sonic.net 1007789646 209.204.142.134 (Fri, 07 Dec 2001 21:34:06 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 07 Dec 2001 21:34:06 PST Xref: typhoon.sonic.net alt.magick:279535 Gnome d Plume wrote: > > As Bartles & James used to say: "Thanks for your support!" > But we still have some roiled waters to smooth with oil. As I have > explained to Nag and Cat, "Nag"? Shall we call you "Garden Statue," then, or "Carole"? C'mon -- that Nag thing was started by some folks who wanted to make fun of nagasiva's name -- how can you oil the roil if you use schoolyard-meanie names like that? Siva (or tyagi, as many still call him) is his usenet name and his street name. > I am a Pagan. I am not anti-Semitic but I am > respectfully, and philosophically anti-Monotheistic; Fine enough. No argument there. Room for all. Land of the Free. > that includes Christianity, Islam and Judaism. And Atenism, too, no doubt. > Do I believe in "God"? Probably > more deeply and profoundly than some of the fundamentalists of all > three monotheistic religions--but I do not believe that a divine > messenger, prophet or Son of God, has any special right to declare > Jihads, Crusades, pogroms, witch hunts, and blue laws in the Name of > a Deity so far beyond our understanding that to declare that one > religion, one man (or woman for that matter) can dictate the most > private and personal aspects of our lives--and of our search for > spiritual understanding (which seems to be what we are here for) is > to me an anathema. I agree with all that. > However, as children we are raised in these "Faiths" What do you mean, "we," white man? I was raised by ATHEISTS WHO POSED AS AGNOSTICS during my childhood so as to not unduly influence my choices but to allow me to come to my own conclusions about religion and philosophy. Yes, this is true. Strange, but true. And you seem to think that siva was "beaten by the stick" of Christianity (thus causing him to become a Satanist in rebellion), but his mother is totally anti-church and he never regularly attended any church. The family did celebrate the popular Pagan-cum-Christian holidays, however, such as Yule-Christmas and Samhain-Halloween. > and we all identify with them in varying degrees. A lot less than you think! > When we were in the process of > creating our synthesis of kabbalah and modern Goddess-oriented > Paganism (a task more challenging than we ever imagined) we ran into > certain philosophical and cultural problems. I recall the time in > middle 70s when we invited several orthodox Jewish people (at their > request) to attend a Seasonal Ceremony. We patiently explained our > Pagan position and our use of the kabbalah, and they seemed to > understand------but when our deacon vibrated YHVH in the opening > Pentagram Ritual, the whole orthodox contingent got up and walked > out. > Do I blame them? Of course not---but it became one more good > reason to retire YHVH from our rites. I understand. It would have been offensive to them, of course. > To Golden Dawners and non-Jewish > students of kabbalah that conception means a Universal God of all > people, and favoring none, but to some Jewish folks it means the God > of The Chosen People. The egragore is too mixed and contradictory. > It has too much emotional loading--and, in my opinion, it is not > necessary to a Pagan kabbalah. I submit again that by removing the Jewish God from the kabbalah, you no longer have a "kabbalah" -- a Hebrew oral tradition of mysticism. You have a pagan emanation scheme. I think it needs a new and more accurate name than "kabbalah." > We realized that the basic formula of > creation is the Three Mother Letters and Earth. YHVH is used in the > *Sepher Yetzirah* Cube of Space as a "Seal" containing the dynamic > of creation (check it out). This doesn't make YHVH any less > important, but it does make it (IMO) philosophically replaceable. That is fine -- but then you do not have the kabbalah. And there is nothing wrong with what you DO have -- just give it another name. > YHVH has some very profound kabbalistic correspondences and I do > not mean to degrade the Great Formula---but, out of respect for our > Jewish brothers and sisters, and following our own lights, we have, > quite properly I believe, given it up. So if an orthodox Jew wanted > to say that we don't have a "real" kabbalah (in the Jewish sense) he > is not only welcome to, I encourage him to feel that way---as long > as he doesn't get arrogant and nasty about it. I am not an orthodox Jew -- just a culturally assimilated Jew -- but even i find it off-putting. I am not saying this to get your goat (or your gaotu), Poke -- i am simply telling it as i feel it. According to my lights, the kabbalah, for better or for worse, is a Jewish mystical tradition. Build on it, distort it, bend it, skew it, and do whatever you wish -- and then rename it. Get your own brand name. If you do not, you are committing the moral equiavalent of trademark violation -- deliberately creating a similar-looking product with a name so similar to the original that it will confuse and mislead the public. You (and i, and siva) have at one time or another called the various Westernized forms of sex magic and sex mysticism we practice "tantra" -- and all of us have given that up, in part due top greater learning on our parts, in part due to protests from Hindus who ask very politiely if we could stop doing that. And it makes sense. > We borrowed the kabbalah, but we did not steal Jehovah. Great. Good for you. As described in the Bible, JHVH is not my fave-rave deity either, frankly. I particularly despise the thinking behind his killing of the Egyptian first-born children. After my first child dioed, in 1970, i realized i would never bow down to a baby-killer god again. But i am still a Jew, like it or not. And i still think the kabbalh is Jewish. > Frankly, I think we deserve some credit for this--and some > Jewish support. We are no longer eating ham and bagel sandwiches. > You got the bagels, and we got the ham! ******* Then take the name kabbalah out of it and go forth and prosper! > Thanks again, and happy Holy Season! And happy Holy Days to you too, pal! cat yronwode Path: typhoon.sonic.net!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3C192F60.6CAF@luckymojo.com> From: catherine yronwode Reply-To: info@luckymojo.com Organization: Lucky Mojo Curio Co. X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01-C-MACOS8 (Macintosh; I; PPC) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,alt.consciousness.mysticism,talk.religion.misc Subject: Re: Hermetic QBL (Supported) (was Parpola Discovered! ....) References: <3C17CBA5.788E161@pacbell.net> <9v98is$ua5$1@slb4.atl.mindspring.net> <9vaf86$6eb$1@slb7.atl.mindspring.net> <3c18d9c4.1208566@trialnews.peoplepc.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 234 Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2001 22:34:05 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.204.136.29 X-Complaints-To: abuse@sonic.net X-Trace: typhoon.sonic.net 1008282845 209.204.136.29 (Thu, 13 Dec 2001 14:34:05 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2001 14:34:05 PST Xref: typhoon.sonic.net alt.magick.tyagi:30310 alt.magick:280309 alt.consciousness.mysticism:53533 talk.religion.misc:368361 Gnome d Plume wrote: > > "Asiya" wrote: > > >"hara" wrote > >> > >> "Asiya" : > > >> > ...Crowley's personal flaws and our feelings regarding them > >> > shouldn't affect our judgment of his magickal success > >> > >> unless his magick was supposed to remove or 'heal' those flaws, > >> in which case we can assess the man as having been a magical > >> failure. regardless of our feelings about any of it, the logical > >> is compelling. > > > > Hmmm...did Crowley ever claim to have completely removed his > > flaws? What was he like his last year alive? I haven't read a > > whole lot about his personal life and views, because I get > > irritated when I do. :) I do not think it is relevant to judge a person's spiritual depth by their "last year alive" -- often that year is spent in sickness, and, in Crowley's case, it was. I would rather assess (not judge -- assess) the congruence between what a teacher advocates and practices by a larger sampling, from the prime of life, over the course of a couple of decades, after the beginning of the person's taking on the role of an advisor or teacher or having procliamed him or herself to have achieved some form of spiritual mastery. Crowley was born in 1875 and took on the role of a spiritual authority sometime before World War One. I would therefor assess the congruity of his behaviour with the system of mysticism he propounded from that point onward. Crowley details quite a bit of what he was doing, thinking, feeling, and achieving during this period in his book "The Confessions of Aleiester Crowley." I think that you might do well to simply buy or borrow a copy and read it. If you are like me you will find in it a frank and self-"confessed" record of racial and sexual prejudice; inconsideration toward others; dislike of children; physical violence toward people of other races or those perceived as inferiors, dependents, or students; substance abuse; desertion of friends and colleagues under life-threatening circumstances (resulting in their deaths); gender-based prejudice againainst woemn; failure to properly credit the (female) co-writers and editors of his many books; and much more that would not be generally considered "spiritual" in nature. You will also see much intellectual prowess, some inspired writing, a great deal of wit, a lot of learning, and a remarkable freeness in admitting failure at some points coupled with a disturbing lask of introspection and self-defensiveness at other points. As Crowley makes clear in the "Confessions" and elswhere, he abandoned his families, lover, and friends repeatedly and under the most grotesque of circumstances. The abandonment of his first wife and their infant child in China (where the child soon died) is the event i personally find the most horrific, but other people have pointed with equal dismay to his disgraceful abandonment of his climbing party in the Himalayas and their deaths. In addition to this, he could not master his own drug addictions. None of this has inspired me to think of the "Crowley Method of Spiritual Attainment Through Magick" as notably successful: its discoverer, leading proponent, and guiding light was a self-confessed failure emotionally, spiritually, financially, and sexually. > >> > and the quality of his writings. > >> > >> with respect to Kabbalah (the subject of this thread), > > > > I was referring to Crowley's writings in general, > > responding to this: > > > > > "John B" wrote: > > Well, that's probably the most pathetic thing I've ever read. > > The poor bastard... no wonder he had to pretend to have > > magical powers I am not so harsh a judge, perhaps. I think he did "pretend" to attainments he did not have, but i also think he was deluded (due to the influence of drugs, proibably) and that he DID have some genuine magical and mystical experiences -- that is, that in some cases, he was able to produce the phenomena he sought to produce, whether they were subjective (state-changes in consciousness) or objective (drawing money for his student Victor Neuberg). > >> I'm unaware that > >> there is evidence of such quality. I'd like to understand more > >> about what you think is valuable in his writings. I've asked the > >> same of Joseph above, and I'm curious what your standards and > >> sources of authority might be. thanks. No one asked me -- but i will venture to again state that Crowley's writings on modern astrology were valuable and of high quality, especially insofar as he very deftly established a coherent rationale for the addition of the "new" palanets Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto, which was an issue troubling many astrologers of the period. Some people in this newsgroup are unfamiliar with Crowley's astrological texts, unfortunately, because he ghost-wrote the books for the then-popular syndicated astrologer Evangeline Adams and they were published under her name. However, i believe thet have recently been reprinted and with her familys permission, proper credit has finally been assigned to Crowley. > > I'm a Ceremonial magick newbie, ya know. I don't have "sources of > > authority". His writings speak to me. Things that I've read by him > > and things that I've done based on his writings have created > > positive change in myself. That's great, and nothing i am saying here is an atrempt to take that away from you, Asiya. I too have been enriched by his writings -- but not his writings on the kabbalah or the I Ching. For my understanding of those topics, i have found much greater wisdom in turning to Jewish and Chinese sources, respectively, In partcular Gershom Sholem on kabbalah and Alfred Huang on the I Ching. > >> > They're two separate things. > >> > >> this seems somewhat unclear. apparently you were saying that his > >> personal flaws and our feelings about them are or ought to be > >> separate from our judgment of his magical success (and especially > >> his 'magickal' success). > > > >Yes, that is what I meant. Well, i have some trouble with making that "separation" in the case of a spiritual leader. I mean, if a telephone repairman is a thief, he may still be a good telephone repairman. But if a Chistian church minister is a thief, i immediately discredit his ability to lead people spiritually, because he is a hypocrite, having violated one of the basic tents of the religion he purports to support and teach. Thius, insofar as Crowley the mystical mage and "master" and "prophet" "herald" of a new aeon is self-confessedly a hater of women and Jews and abandons his fellow mountain climers to their deaths and abandons his wife and child in the middle of China (!) -- well, i discredit his spiritual maturity and thus his fitness to claim "adepthood" in mystical-magical matters. As a Jew and a woman, i sure don't want to live in the new aeon which he heralds and prophesies! Your mileage may vary. > Please do not let this tirade of nagasiva's confuse or upset you. > I will suggest that at this point in what he thinks is a > "discussion" it becomes obvious that he is insecure and emotional-- > as much of a "true believer" in his own strange way as fundamental > Christian arguing against a woman's right to have an abortion. This is an ad hominem attack on siva, not a defense of Crowley. As such it is off-topic. (And incredibly rude.) > The underlying issue here is whether or not the study and practice > of Western Magick, as defined by Hermes, Iamblichus, Prophory, > Picatrix, Abbot Trithemius, Agrippa, Dee, Athinasius Kircher (whose > configuration of the Tree of Life most of us use!) Levi, Hockley, > Mackenzie, Westcott, Mathers, Yeats, Crowley, Dion Fortune, > Regardie, DuQuette, and to some lesser extent, yours truly, has any > right to employ a "kabbalah" in any form. The original claim you made was that you ("we" -- the Church of Hermetic Sciences) had "rectified" the resumeably errant Jewish kabbalah. You later apologized for that. I do not think that siva is -- and i know i am not -- curtailing, questioning, ot denying your right to "employ a 'kabbalah' in any form." Rather, i suggested that since you have removed YHVH from your kabbalah, and since you have substitut3ed the Phoenician alphabet for the Hebrew alphabet (and then changed the number of letters in the Phoenician alphabet to boot) that you might do well to also remove the word "kabbalah" from your system. It is a fascinating system, Poke -- i do admire tis elegance. But it isn't the kabbalah, anymore than Christianity is Judaism. It is de novo. I merely suggested that you use a new name -- and i did not contest you when you refused to do so. So please, don't dramatise the issue. > This is tantamount to making an all-out attack on the Mormon > Church for daring to write a sequel to the Bible! (many such > attacks have been made BTW) Minus the "all-out attack" -- which is all in your own mind and never took place (and it is specious of you to equate gentle discourse in usenet with the actual violence perpetrated against Mormons) -- this is indeed the issue. And, for the record, i do not think that Mormonism is Christianity any more than i think Chistianity is Judaism. The Latter Day Saints broke away from Christianity. Mormonism might be consered part of the Judeo-Islamic-Chrisian-Mormon complex of religions, branching off from Christianity -- but to use biological terms, i think that Mormonism is a new "species" of religion. And i think the emanation scheme you have refined and which you teach is not kabbalah. > and after 500 years of using the "kabbalah" for purposes beyond its > original scope and intent, as a commentary on the Torah, Hermetic > magicians are now expected to give kabbalah (or Qbalah or Cabala, or > Qubbalah) a new name? They are not expected to. But it would be respectful of them to do so, in my opinion. Respect for the wishes of Jews is not something we see much of, however. Still, we can make our wishes known, can we not? > -- And this on top of the Jewish community's virtual abandonment > of the tradition in the 17th and 18th centuries! This is > carrying "Political Correctness" to such ludicrous extremes > that it not only insults a 500 year old esoteric tradition, it > insults our intelligence! Your claim of the abandonment of kabbalah in the Jewish community is unusual and so far unsupported. The Jewish community is not monolithic. Assimilated Jews in Germany and England may not have studied kabbalah much during the era of their greatest attempts to assimilate and disappear into European rationalist-scientific culture, but it was not abandoned by all Jews. And, regardless of popularity trends, the kabbalah remains a Jewish mystical tradition, not up for grabs by those who would remove the name of the god it was designed to magnify, thoise who would substitute for Herbrew an alphabet it was never designed to work with, and those who would aim toward spiritual goals (such as your own avowed "anti-monotheism") which patently subvert its original purposes. I am not saying that what you teach is bad. I am not saying that what you teach is wrong. I am saying that what you teach is no longer the kabbalah. I believe that what you teach is a neo=pagan emmanation-system of great interest to the magical community at large. I beleive you got your start in it by studying the Christian and hermetic riffs on the Jewoish kabbalah, and that you -- and they -- are not teaching the kabbalah, but some new species of spiritual system, which deserves a new name all its own. cat yronwode The Esoteric Archive --------- http://www.luckymojo.com/esoteric.html
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