THE ARCANE ARCHIVE
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To: alt.magick,alt.magick.tyagi,alt.pagan.magick,alt.occult
From: catherine yronwode 
Subject: Re: english qaballa and racist agendae (was re: gematria and ...)
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1998 15:36:13 -0800

Neil Fernandez wrote:
> 
> Cat wrote:
> 
> >See also the genesis of Carl Gustav Jung's theory of the "collective
> >unconscious" (for reference, i recommend highly "The Cult of Jung," 
> >by Noll). Jung based his theory of "archetypes" and "the collective
> >unconscious" on the case of a patient in an insane asylum whom he 
> >dubbed "The Solar Phallus Man."
> 
> 
> 
> >The point Noll makes here is two-fold: first, Jung was certainly a
> >plagiarist, a falsifier, and a liar -- but his promotion of "Aryan"
> >Mithraic "solar phallicism" marks him as a racist, which is a greater
> >evil. Noll effectively connects Jung's interest in the "solar phallic
> >cult" of Aryanism with a Volkish determination to remove "semitic"
> >(Jewish) religious practices and attitudes from the culture of the
> >"Germanic" (Aryan) people, of whom he considered himself a member. 
> >Jung was not alone in this -- the entire Volkish Movement was filled 
> >with such hate agendas, as can be seen by the Nazis, who drew much 
> >from Jung and other Volkish theorists.
> 
> 
> 
> >like Jung, an avowed anti-semite.
> >
> > [tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com] wrote: 
> > 
> > > possible that everything Crowley touched is subtlely neonazi
> > > in character
> >
> >I think you mean "proto-Nazi." Neo-Nazi refers to the period after 
> >the fall of the Third Reich, at which time Crowley was near-dead or
> >completely dead.
> 
> 
> 
> >The "if" is unproven, and the proof would have to be in the pudding.
> >Thus i would rephrase the question further: "Are Thelemites notably
> >anti-Jewish?" So far, i think the ones i have met in usenet have had 
> >a less-than-expected understanding of what constitutes Jewish 
> >religious mysticism and some of them have also indicated that think 
> >they can appropriate Jewish mysticism for themselves because we "old 
> >style" Jews aren't using it anymore. This is not "evil" per se, 
> >merely naive arrogance to the point of annoyance.

> Nice post, Cat. I have on occasion encountered amazement when telling
> people about Jung's Nazism. In fact the Jungian conceptualisation of 
> the category of 'collective unconscious' is founded on racism and 
> ideas such as 'race memory'. That is its foundation. Jung also saw 
> himself as a strong opponent of what he called 'smutty-minded Jewish 
> psychology' associated with Freud. No wonder what Freud thought of his 
> anti-Semitic scumbag former student. 

Jung, with his famous vision of God shitting on a Christian church,
called Frued's psychology "smutty-minded"? That's a classic case of
the-pot-calling-the-kettle-black ! 

> One function of Jungianism is still to conceal the material of
> psychic interest within Freud's own work... 

An interesting point: by denying that Frued had any interest in psychic
or metaphysical material, Jung could more easily separate his
psychotherapy cult from the "Jewish" one.   

> Overall, Jungianism is a 
> part of Nazi thought - and it is not the only one - that was 
> unfortunately not consigned to the dustbin.
> 
> BTW I am only at an early stage in learning kabbalah, but I am 
> attracted to it because notwithstanding its roots as an esoteric 
> belief-system within a specific religious culture, its core seems to 
> me to be profoundly universalist. That is the way I am approaching it. 
> That is the approach I wish to study. 

I think that many people will agree with you and endorse this approach. 

> I am not an 'expert' on this, but I have heard it said that
> many Crowleyites and practitioners of 'western kabbalism' are unaware 
> of the history of Jewish kabbalah as a '(magical/spiritual) tradition 
> in its own right' - they see it rather as a set of techniques, 
> knowledge of which found its way, in some form or other, into the 
> beliefs and practices of non-Jewish Renaissance hermeticists etc...or 
> as a 'language'.

This is the essence of the discussion at hand, and i agree with you
completely: the Crowley-Mathers group of 19th-20th century European
hermeticists emphasized their descent from the late Medieval and early
Renaissance hermeticists, and thus obviated any indebtedness to Judaism
as the origin of the kaballah. As one person pointed out in usenet, the
reasons for this may have been inncocent as well as race-based --
Crowley et al may simply not have had access to Hebrew materials and may
have relied on the "Christian" kaballah of the Renaissance as a primary
source. 

However, it must be understood that the Chistian Kaballah was the
invention of Jews who "converted" to Christianty. Now, to many modern
ears, this sounds like an innocent enough decision on their parts. You
know, plenty of young Anglo-American girls go to India and "convert" to
Hinduism and live in an ashram. Lots of African-Americans "convert" to
Islam and make the pilgrimage to Mecca. So, what's the big deal about a
few old-time Jews "converting" to Christianity and bringing the kaballah
along with them? 

What needs to be recognized (and unfortunately is not disrectly stated
in most modern books of kaballh), is that the wholesale "conversions" of
Jews to Christianity performed from the 1300s through the 1700s were
acceded to under pain of torture or death or, at best, under a legal
edict of expulsion of Jews from certain cities, states, or nations,
whereby "conversion" would ensure the ability to remain in one's home. 

The rise of the "Christian" kaballah corresponds in time with the
inauguration of the Spanish Inquisition (in which Jews were blamed for
promoting heresies), with the wholesale masscare of Jews in Spain and
elsewhere, and with the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, Belgium, parts
of France, and from many German cities as well. This "ethnic cleansng"
was dealt with in two ways by Jews: Some "converted" (mostly in name
only, retaining their Jewish traditions in secret for hundreds of
years); others moved to territories where local governments protected
them. Some of those who "converted" evidently sought to preserve a
measure of their mystical literature. By applying the techniques of the
kaballah to Christian texts, they were able to produce convincing proofs
of their own "conversions" while still passing on the knowledge of
Jewish msyticism to future generations. 

Yesterday i got a book on this subject from Barry Carroll (thanks,
Barry!) called "A World Passed By: Great Cities in Jewish Diaspora
History" by Marvin Lowenthal. Originally published in 1933, on the eve
of Hitler's rise to power, it details the architectural and artistic
history of the Jews who inhabited Western Europe from the Roman era
through the late 18th century. The index entry on "cabbala" (the
author's preferred spelling) leads to mentions of occult-based
relationships between Jews and Gentiles such as the following, taken
from the journal of an 18th century Jew: 

     Rabii [Haim David] Azulai [had] come [to Paris, France  
     in 1777] from  Hebron [Israel] to collect funds for his 
     theological seminary. We can readily imagine him, in 
     turban and robe, Oriental fashion, entering the house 
     now labelled No. 3 [Rue Singer]. For from 1770 to 1826 
     this house sheltered the synagogue of the Sephardim 
     [one of the two major groups of Jews, the other being 
     the Askenazi]....Rabbi Azulai, as he explains himself, 
     had cause to be amazed....He was puzzled beyond
     words at the Christian lords and ladies who took him
     up, a mere Jew, and begged from him morsels of Cabbala
     and a blessing." 

This was indeed the state of things in the past. The intrinsic
"Jewishness" of the kaballah was an essntial part of its exotic
"Oriental" charm to European goyim with an interest in the occult. (By
the way, Lowenthal defines "Cabbala" in his glossary as "The Jewish
system and literature of occult mysticism, often verging on magic" --
which is as fair a definition as i have ever read.) 

Modern non-Jewish occultists may need help reconciling the dualistic
phenomenon of 14th through 18th century Gentiles "beg[ging
for]...morsels of Cabbala" while their governments were forcing Jews to
"convert" to Chistianity (and thus produce a "Christian" kaballah) under
pain of death. 

One way to supply such a perspective is by contrasting the Cristian
desire to learn the kaballah with Lowenthal's accounts of how late
Medieval Christians created -- and memorialized in church architecture
-- a particular urban legend about an attempted Jewish desecration of a
consecrated Sacred Host. The story goes that a group of "wealtrhy" Jews
purchased the consecrated Host from a venal Sacristan and brought it to
their synagogue, where they spat upon it and blasphemed it. The wafer 
miraculously survived intact under trials by water, fire, spitting,
cursing, etc. at the hands of the blasphemous Jews. 

Like any modern urban legend, this anti-Semitic myth was invariably
localized to the city where it appeared and was fitted out with a full
panoply of supposedly substantiating regional details. The story
concluded with the discorvey of the attempted desecration and the
"rescue" of the Host by Christians -- which served as a justification
for the punishment, torture, death, and expulsion of the city's Jewish
population. The "miracle of the Host" was typially commemorated in local
cathedral architecture and celebrated with an annual local festival
commemorating the killing of the town's Jews. 

Here is a typical versiom of the myth, found on a plaque in the Church
of Corpus Christi in Segovia, Spain. This church was formnerly a
synagogue, built in the 13th century, but was sapproprtaed by Christians
in the 15th century. The plaque reads: 

     "In 1410 the sacristan of San Facundo sold a consecrated 
     Host to a Jew. Joyfully the latter convoked those of his 
     sect in the synagigue, where they gave themselves over to 
     horrible blasphemies and sacrileges. The crime was 
     miraclulously discovered, the guilty punished by being 
     drawn and quartered, and the synagogue was confiscated 
     and consecrated to the Christian cult under the invocation 
     of Corpus Christi. In thanksgiving thereof a festival is 
     celebrated yearly in each parish..."

Lest anyone think that this ancient urban legend died out in time, it
should be noted that such church architecture was in full display in
Lowenthal's time, and the "Miracle of the Host" was still celebrated
with festivals. In fact, the plaque quoted above was, in Lowenthal's
words, "modern," and it was accompanied by a "modern painting on the
vestibule wall, that plainly shows the synagogue cleft with the awful
shock [of a miraculous earthquake], the Jews fleeing in terror, and the
wafer of the Host rising unscatrhed from a fire in which, it appears,
the villains had hurled it."

It is worth noting that although the church had at one point been
damaged by an earthquake, the damage occurred to a portion built after
the structure had been confiscated by Christians, when it was known not
as Corpus Christi but as Islesia Nueva. Thus, the "modern" plaque and
paintings were recent fabrications, not the ignorant misinformation of
centuries long gone. 

(By the way, i believe that the particular anti-Semitic urban legend
Lowenthal calls "The Desecration of the Host" is the root source of
contemporary urban myths that charge variously the Freemasons and the
Satanists with similarly attempting to blaspheme, spit upon, burn, or
otherwise misuse a consecrated Host or a Crucifix. However, unlike the
modern "Desecration of the Host" urban legend, which generates gospel
tracts, sensational tabloid news stories, and perhaps a day care center
show-trial now and then, the Medieval "Desecration of the Host" urban
legend led directly to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.)

Knowledge of this crucial history of European spiritual dualism --
centuries of virulent hatred of Jews on the one hand and a desire to
possess the fruits of Jewish mysticism on the other -- is lacking among
many modern Thelemites of Anglo-Saxon descent. 

In stripping the kaballah of its "Jewish" history, in declaring that
they were revealing a "new" kabbalah for their "New Aeon," 19th and 20th
century hermeticists like Crowley may have been acting out of ignorance,
from a racist agenda, or simply out of delusional self-aggrandizement.
Whatever their motivations, they dropped the ball on historical truth --
and thus they have spawned a generation of students who now seem to
sincerely believe that "their" kaballah is independent of any need to
acknowledge or understand Judaism or Jewish culture. 

The historical ignorance of some modern Thelemites, when displayed in
usenet, may lead contemporary Jewish-American occultists to accuse them
of being insensitive to the Jewish origin of the kaballah. If such
Thelemites persist in their disbelief of history to the point of asking
for "proof" of the kaballah's Jewishness, they may be accused of
outright racism by impatient Jews (among whom i number myself). 

Perhaps the cause of this conflict between "New Aeon" kabbalists and
Jewish occultists is not Crowley's disbelief in the Jewishness of the
kaballah (surely he knew of it!), but rather that an a-historic
generation of contemporary Thelemites puts their complete trust in
flawed or incomplete teachings which have falsely led tthem to think
that "their" kaballah, as revealed by their lineage-founder, Mr.
Crowley, is not Jewish in its root.

That's all just speculation, of course, but, as Neil Fernandez points
out here, and as Tim ("the American Qabalist") noted in usenet, there
are more than a few Crowleyites running around loose who don't know that
the kaballah is Jewish. 

Perhaps some Thelemite reading this can be encouraged to explain to the
rest of us why so many Thelemites are, as Neil says, "unaware of the
history of Jewish kabbalah as a '(magical/spiritual) tradition in its
own right'...[and] see it rather as a set of techniques...or as a
'language'."

Are the words "technique" and "language" part of the instruction-set
accompanying Thelemite teaching of the kaballah? 

> Paradoxically, what appears to be an approach dressed in 'narrower'
> clothes, namely the more Jewish approach, is in fact more 
> 'universalist' and deeper. Some time soon I will put Avram Corren's 
> text 'Everything's Relative' (if he says it's OK) on to the borve 
> website  - I'd be interested to hear 
> what you think of this. 

I think it's a great idea -- the more text on these matters on the web,
the better for humanity!!!

> Jacob Boehme comes into this somewhere - an important influence on
> Hegel, according to Corren, and I believe him. Hegel seems to have 
> worked with a deep understanding of the idea of ain soph aur.
> 
> OTOH, whilst the kabbalist path I am interested in is to a large 
> extent Jewish, I suspect that there may be some Jewish kabbalists who
> re-specificise or overly-specificise kabbalah. 

Right. And, lest i be accused of this, i hasten to note that i have no
interest in promoting a "Jewish-only" kaballah myself! 

> But then as soon as one looks 
> at that, one has to deal with the concept of specific correlates of,
> or windows on, or frameworks for aspects of the manifestation of, the
> universal, which in a way is what kabbalah is all about understanding
> anyway (although remembering of course that the universe is smaller 
> than God's little fingertip?! :-) ) And then I'd add the point that 
> whilst I am not interested in anything defined as an 'English Holy 
> Text', I am not sure that I am willing to spend the effort to learn 
> Hebrew. I believe that many Jewish kabbalists work largely on their 
> own, or in correspondence with a few others, which is also an 
> attraction.

It seems to be a common conception among Gentiles that the kaballah has
fallen into disuse or disinterest among Jews or that few Jews study it
and when they do, they do so in solitude. I am not sure why this is
thought to be so; perhaps it has to do with the Jewish tendency toward
maintining a low profile, religiously speaking (a tendency that is, of
course, derived from the centuries of oppressive history alluded to
above). Be that as it may, i agree that there are few if any Jewish
kabbalisys who publicize their ideas in the way that, for instance,
modern Anglo-Celtic neo-pagans do. There is no equivalent of Llewelyn
Publishing for Jewish mystical thought. :-)

> The main point of this was to ask for publication details of Noll's
> work on Jung.

It's "The Cult of Jung" by Richard Noll, published in 1994 by Princeton
University press and reprinted in 1996 by Simon and Schuster. 
 
> While I'm here though, I'd be interested to hear if anybody knows 
> anything about Islamic kabbalah. Or Sufi kabbalah. I understand that 
> many Sufis with a more universalist approach don't call themselves 
> Sufis, they just call themselves 'people like us'. I don't know to 
> what extent this is seen as conflicting with an approach based on 
> membership of and instruction within 'Orders'.

Islamic astrology and Islamic alchemy are famous, but i have never heard
of an Islamic kaballah. The idea is not beyond comprehension or
ridiculous on the face of it, however. Tyagi suggests that perhaps if
such material actually exists, one place to search for clues would be in
Idries Shah's book "Oriental Magic." 

catherine yronwode

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