THE ARCANE ARCHIVE
	a cache of usenet and other text files pertaining to occult, mystical, and spiritual subjects.

To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,alt.pagan.magick,talk.religion.misc,alt.thelema,alt.occult
From: catherine yronwode 
Subject: Re: Qaballistic Magick (LONG Rvw)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 16:20:01 -0800

jake stratton-kent wrote:
> 
> [from private email: jake stratton-kent ]
> 
> hara  writes

> >a review of "Qaballistic Magick", by an unknown author or authors
> >(jake/penny?) -- an apparent neognostic body of QBL writings at:
> >
> > [from http://members.aol.com/kiblah1/index.html ]
> >
> >the text to which I am responding was contained within the
> >entirety posted at that URL:

> >#  Qabalistic magick traditionally - by which we mean not the Golden
> >#   Dawn variant but the original Hebrew practical Kabbalah -
> >
> >best sources on the details of this?  examples?  I will provide a
> >selection from a source which you consider reliable, but whose
> >analysis of your prophet and whose expressions regarding this
> >portion of Jewish mysticism appears to contradict yours somewhat.
> >
> Scholem presumably, his attitude to AC (and even Levi) was certainly
> dismissive.
> 
> OTOH Scholem doesn't even mention Agrippa or Mirandola in his index, 
> a shocking omission which marks him as a partizan author. Reliable on
> Hebrew, indeed indispensible IMO, but decidedly grumpy about goys
> getting in on the act. 

I don't know in which of Scholem's many book you failed to find mention
of Mirandola in the index, but indices are not usually prepared by the
author, in any case. Certainly Scholem mentions Mirandola in the text of
"Kabbala," and that is sufficient. 

Why do you characterise him as "grumpy about goys getting in on the
act"? He states a scholarly opinion, namely that so-called Christian
cabala was an attempt to appropriate Jewish mysticism for religious
propagandistic purposes that must be understood in light of
then-contemporary political-religious events, particularly the mass
murders, tortures, explusions, and forced "conversions" of the Jews in 
certain reas within Europe between the late 1200s and the early 1700s.
Kabbalah was, quite literally a prize in the ongoing war against Judaism
being waged in Europe at that time. If these facts are unknown to you,
it is possible that to you Scholem may seem "grumpy," but i suggest that
you simply don't understand the historical context and that maybe your
opinion of Scholem would cahnge if you were to read up on Jewish history
in the diaspora.  

> However he and other authors like Aryeh Kaplan give good accounts of
> Kabbalah as a means of attaining mystical states and visiting 'the 
> fifty gates' or 'seven palaces' and/or 'riding the chariot'. The fact 
> that various aspects of the Kabbalah may differ and provide 
> contrarian quotes is not specially germane. The Hebrew Kabbalah isn't 
> a unified body of doctrine - it has schools, factions, historical 
> phases. Anyone can find quotes to support one thesis or another. Even 
> a single author, like Scholem, supplies data useful to many points of 
> view.

Good going, Jake. Now you are beginning to understand why Jewish
kabbalists laugh at the foolish notions of G.D. pseudo-kabbalists like
Bennet, Crowley, et al, who avere that kabbalah is "a language" or "a
marchalling forth of numbers."  They were simply uninformed. No blame to
them for their silly insistence that a study of gematria represents a
study of kabbalah; they hadn't done their research (they didn't know any
Jewish mystics, i guess...). By reading Scholem, you have begun to see
that kabbalah is a confluence of several schools and forms of Jewish
mystical thought going far beyond number-symbolism -- and that a good,
short definistion for it is, " a school, or schools, of Jewish
mysticism."  

> >#    When Crowley describes the efforts of the Angels to exclude
> >#    him by force from experiences to which his degree of initiation
> >#    did not entitle him, he could be quoting directly from the
> >#    books of the Merkavah tradition of early kabbalism. The use of
> >#    words of power and other keys to reduce or deflect these
> >#    assaults is a common feature of these works.
> >
> >if this is the case, then why was it that Scholem contended that
> >writers like Crowley had an "infinitesimal knowledge" of kabbalah?
> 
> because Scholem rejects christian and hermetic qabalah.
> Big brain, small mind.

Jake, an ad hominem attack on a deceased author is useless and cannot be
thought to prove your point. 

Of course Scholem is not interested in so-called Christian cabala or
so-called Hermetic qabalah. Why should he be? why should ANYBODY be? If
you are interested in a system of mysticism -- whether it is Jewish,
Hindu, Islamic, Taoist, or Congolese -- why on earth would you take some
tiny extract of of this mystical system produced by its opponents during
a period of *intense* murderous political and religious hostility
directed against those whose system it is and consider that a defining
version of it? 

Look at this thing in perspective, will you? 

Would you trust Senator McCarthy to tell you the truth about Anarchism,
Socialism, and Communism? Would you rely on Genral Custer to tell you
the ins and outs of Sioux religious practices? Would you seek the help
of Japanese Zen Buddhist roshis in attmepting to understand kami-worship
(indigenous Japanese religion)?  That's what it's like to trust
Christians of the 13th through 17th centuries to tell you the truth
about kabbalah! 

It's not a question of Scholem being "grumpy about goys getting in on
the act" -- it's a question of why ANY scholar of religion or religious
history would find it of value to approach a topic by promulgating the
theories of those who opposed it, oppressed and killed its believers,
and appropriated its symbolism for their own propagandistic purposes. 

> Of course 'qabalah' *isn't* Judaic, anymore than the features in the
> hebrew system which most resemble the gentile system are uniquely
> Jewish.

Look at what you are asserting, Jake! 

For qabalah" i am going to substitute the definition used by Yates and
by Scholem: "a system of Jewish mysticism."  For the word "hebrew
system" (which is meaningless, sicne hebrew is a language, sot a
system), i am going to substitute the word "Jewish." For the word
"gentile" i am going to substitute the word "Christian." 

You are saying this:

"Jewish mysticism is not Jewish, any more than the features of the
Jewish mystical system that most resemble the Christian mystical sysem
are uniquely Jewish." 

You seem to be saying that because some features of Jewish mysticism
(which ones?) closely resemble some features of Christian mysticisnm
(which ones [and are you aware that Christianity developed out of
Judaism, so a resemblance is not unexpected ;-)]?) therefore Jewish
mysticism is not Jewish. 

Please explain. 

> >here referring to Crowley's. the implication is that Crowley
> >spent any time engaging the Buddhist or other mystical cultures
> >and practices to a degree which would yield results. when I ask
> >after some citation concerning this from the Thelemic community
> >(i.e. names of masters of these traditions who validated his
> >claims in any way) I find it common to receive silence or
> >fanatical responses.  further indications that it is beset by
> >charlatanry from which it cannot free itself -- cult-ure.  if
> >I have simply not heard these citations, please repeat them.
> >
> Disregarding negative reactions attendant on AC's persona it is a 
> fact that Bennett remains highly regarded among Western Buddhists 
> with good connections to the East. 

Old citations or modern ones? Infomation, please...

> Therefore, since Bennett was AC's tutor in meditation etc. I think we 
> may say AC was both well informed and well practiced. 

A logical fallacy; A kid in my high school went nuts one day at
lunch-time, walked home, got a frozen deer leg out of his pantry,
carried it to school and brained his auto shop teacher (Berkeley High
School, Berkeley, California, circa 1965). Was the student "well
informed and well practiced" in the disciplines he had studied under his
tutor? Would you want him for *your* car mechanic? 

> Assuming one wants to do magick, ignoring AC is impossible. 

I find it quite easy tgo ignore him, myself. Centuries of magicians
preceded this fellow and he had little effect on those stiudying
magic(k) outside his limited cultural-social-temporal circle. I think
that were you to venture to Kinshasa right now and study magical
practices, you would find no references to Mr. Crowley. I will go so far
as to opine that you will not learn of him when studying magic in Cuzco,
nor in Chichicastenango. I don;t even think he's hot potatoes in
Birmingham, Alabama. 

> His life
> work may have fallen short of what is possible, but so far no-one has
> improved on it, at least not as a whole.

Idolatry like that is interesting but not appealing to an outside
observer such as myself. You sound like a Hari Krinshaite or something! 

> >is there some way to ascertain what level of familiarity he may
> >have actually possessed other than through this self-aggrandize-
> >ments and the expansive claims of his cultists?
> 
> and anti-cultists 'I'm going one better than Crowley' or 'I'll make
> Crowley look like a boy scout'.

Jake, you didn;t answer hara's quertion. The point hara is making is
important: what level of familiarity with the works Crowley purported to
be reforming and synthesiing did he actually possess? 

According to Scholem, he had "limited" understanding of kabbalah. You
say that this opinion marks sScholem as "grumpy about goys" -- but you
don't prove that asserion beyond later stating that Scholem has a "small
mind." Please, try to marshall some basis for your rhetorical
obstinance. 

Also, while you are at it, please give your opinion of Crowley's level
of familiarity with Chinese systems of magic and mysticism. He presumed
to cast "se[phirotic" light on the I Ching in "777" and "The Book of
Thoth"  -- but even with my very limited understanding of the Chinese
system (gained through reading works in English) i could see that he was
faking it and just striking out at random in trying to create
correspondences. Do you and your fellow Crowleyites think he was really
on to something in his I Ching interpretattions? Do you think that folks
like Alfred Huang are remiss for not citing Crolwey as the great
Sinologist he claimed to be (e.g. in the footnotes to "777")? 

> face it, AC was a great occultist - as Patton was a great exponent of
> mechanised warfare. The fact that Patton slapped a shell shock victim
> does not invalidate this assertion. The fact that AC could be a 
> middle class mysogynist has no bearing on his capacity for yoga.

Well, in my book, a middle class mysogynist with a capacity for yoga is
little more than a freak of nature. Crowley's insulting comments about
Indians who speak "Babu English" in "777" certainly don't recommend him
to Hindus as an interrpreter of *their* culture's systems of
mystico-religious practice, either, i'll wager! 

> >#    At this point, it is amusing to dilate upon the subject of
> >#    "authority" in kabbalistic matters a little: "From
> >#    the brilliant misunderstandings and misrepresentations
> >#    of.....Eliphas Levi, to the highly coloured humbug of
> >#    Aleister Crowley and his followers, the most eccentric and
> >#    fantastic statements have been produced purporting to be
> >#    legitimate interpretations of Kabbalism." Gershom G.Scholem
> >#    in "Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism", to which he adds in
> >#    a footnote: "No words need to be wasted on the subject of
> >#    Crowley's `Kabbalistic' writings in his books on what he
> >#    was pleased to term `Magick'..."
> >
> >I'm surprised that you would include this, given its damning
> >review of your prophet.
> >
> It at least demonstrates the distance between the two. Too many 
> hermetic qabalah primers include a history of Kabbalah as if the two 
> had something in common. 

Jake, are you saying that the so-called hermetic qabalah has *nothing*
in common with the Jewish system of mysticism called kabbalah? Are you
SERIOUS? 

> >#    It is worthy of note that Scholem also avoids mentioning
> >#    the vast majority of Renaissance "Christian Kabbalists",
> >#    in whose tradition Crowley and the Golden Dawn possessed
> >#    more legitimacy.
> >
> >you can understand that, can't you, given the TITLE OF THE TEXT
> >FROM WHICH YOU TOOK THIS QUOTE?
> 
> in which he finds room to denounce Levi and Crowley, but not to 
> mention Agrippa? No, I can't.

Hmmm. I think this is hair-splitting. The way i read it, Scholem finds
Levi and Crowley to be, simply, the writers who have produced "the most
eccentric and fantastic statements [...] purporting to be legitimate
interpretations of Kabbalism." 

If Agrippa was, in Scholem's opinion, less "eccentric and fantasic," --
if he represents a sort of quasi-respectful middle-ground in the realm
of counter-Jewish propagandistic kabbalah -- then he need not be
mentioned in a paragraph dealing with nut-case pseudo-kabbalsim. 

Crowley and his compatriots (e,g, Mathers) were *definitely* at the
outmost fringes. Have you read that utterly bizzare passage in the
Regardie redaction of "777" and the "Equinox" articles in which there is
an attempt to link together into one pile the Christian anagram INRI;
the Latin word "lux" (light); the Egyptian deities Isis, Osiris, and
Apophis (Apep); the Gnostic incantation IAO; the zodiacal signs Virgo,
Scorpio, and Pisces [i think it is Pisces; i don't have the book at
hand]; and so forth and so on ad (almost) infinitum via
pseudo-kabbalaism? Truly, THAT IS SO BIZARRE IT WARRANTS MENTION! It
makes Agrippa, Pico, and even Shabbetai Zevi look like
middle-of-the-roaders! 

> >compare _Kabbalah_ by the same
> >author, in which we find an entire section dedicated to analyzing
> >the historical appearance of Christian Kabbalah (by this name,
> >Scholem provides them with some degree of notice and respect,
> >however reluctant or facetious as some reviewers have claimed).
> 
> and does he say 'in this context AC and Levi possess more 
> legitimacy'?
> 
> no, he doesn't.

Right; he disses them there, too. And rightly so, in my opinion. 

> >#    Crowley was not exactly complimentary about the Hebrew
> >#    system either: "The Qabalah, that is the Jewish Tradition
> >#    concerning the initiated interpretation of their Scriptures,
> >#    is mostly either unintelligible or nonsense." ("Little
> >#    Essays Towards Truth.")
> >
> >thanks for doing my homework digging for me. it appears that
> >Crowley was both disrespectful of Jewish mystical tradition
> >and largely incomprehending of it.  this does not represent
> >to me "a philosophical frame of reference".

My theory exactly. 

Now do you see why i believe that Scholem was not merely "grumpy about
giys" as you playfully pretend, but instead legitimately critical of
Crowley's fraudilence? 

> >#    Our understanding of the relationship of kabbalist with text
> >#    is not going to be advanced much by Crowley, since that
> >#    tradition was virtually a closed book to him.
> >
> >then the question should again be brought up: if this tradition
> >was a "closed book" to him, why did he perpetuate the notion
> >that "qabalah" was something he knew about in any way whatever?
> 
> the distinction between Kabbalah and Qabalah has been argued 
> elsewhere, and this post is too long already.

This distinction exists primarily in your mind, Jak, and in the minds of
your cult-clique. It is based merely on the coincidental fact that the
Hebrew alphabet has an incomplete correlation with the Roman alphabet,
thus allowing you the privelege of playing spelling games. But it makes
no difference how the word is spelled -- it is a Hebrew word and it
describes a Jewish system of mysticism. 

> >if he was perpetuating a pre-existing Christian appropriation,
> >what does this say about him as a reliable source and man of
> >the kind of integrity which Thelemic philosophy indicates is
> >indicative of the 'New Aeon'?
> 
> as I've said, many elements of the Hebrew system aren't necessarily 
> the product of the Hebrews. They transmitted *and transformed* 
> various themes - but have no final say in what follows thereafter.

Are you claiming here that the Jews were a sort of scavanger race who
created no new mystical ideas but merely "transmitted and transformed
various themes" gleaned from the writings of other races and cultures? 

Also, even allowing for the fact that you are English and i am American
and there may be some differences in word-uage among us, i am beginning
to wonder -- enough to ask, at long last -- why you so consistently
refer to Jews as "Hebrews," to Jewish mysticism as "Hebrew mysticism,"
and to the kabbalah as a "Hebrew system" rather than "Jewish system" Is
this an unweighted, common figure of speech in your circle or in your
culture, or do you somehow not feel comfortable with the word "Jew"? I
ask this without prejudice, simply as a writer who notices odd turns of
phrase. (To my American ears, "Hebrew" is not the same as "Jewish.")    

> >#    The modus operandi of traditional qaballism is ascertainable
> >#    from such works as Scholem's and also those of Kaplan
> >#    (see Reviews in Equinox/BJT 7 and 8). Although the former
> >#    authority is explicitly uncharitable to the work of
> >#    non-Jewish kabbalists, and the latter implicitly, this is
> >#    perhaps readily excused on the grounds of both the cultural
> >#    heritage and scholastic background of these two authors.
> >#    Disregarding their evident bias,
> >
> >that is, they are *JEWISH* and would know best who should be
> >included as authorities on the subject which they are attempting
> >to cover in their text.
> 
> not so, they can tell us more about Kabbalah, but have their own axes 
> to grind.

"Axes to grind"? What do you mean by this? 

How can describing the history and utilization of one's own cultural
system of religious mysticism be called "axe grinding"? 

Is it "axe grinding" when an Arab writes about Sufism? Is it "axe
grinding" when a Nigerian writes about Ifa? Is it "axe grinding" when a
Cambodian writes about Buddhism? 

If so, why? If not, why not? 

> > why should this be considered anything
> >but a bias justified by familiarity with the subject matter?

What he said. 

> Naturally ANY disagreement with a Jewish author can be portrayed in 
> an unfavourable light by officiously P/C authors. 

Don't worry about "PC" stuff. That was just a silly leftist joke that
got co-opted by rightists. 

> Is it anti-semitic to criticise Marx?

I think you know the answer to that. Karl Marx was racially Jewish, but
he was not a religiously observant Jew and he distanced himself from all
religion, including Judaism. To criticise his political writings as
(e.g.) "typically depraved Jewish political theories" is a fairly
obvious sign of anti-semitism. To criticize them as (e.g.) "unworkable
political theories with no true historical basis" is just as evidently
not anti-semitic. 

You didn't need me to tell you that, though. 

> I don't believe God built the universe with the Alef Bet, but despite
> this find the Kabbalists have much to say that bears directly on word
> magick and mystical exegesis. This information is not their  
> exclusive possession, and no misrepresentation or ulterior motive in 
> relation to the Jewish people and their traditions is implied by 
> using it.

It's never been a question of "exclusive possession" of the kabbalah by
Jews that is at stake in this discussion, although several of the
Gentiles participating here seem to think so. What *IS* at styake, and
is worth fighting for, is acknowledgement on the part of these specific
Gentiles that the kabbalah is a Jewish system of mysticism which is
*NOT*, to use Crowley's phrase, "mostly either unintelligible or
nonsense" and thus is *NOT* in need of a brilliant Gentile Mage to
rectify its errors and make sense of it for all humanity. That is, it is
a system of mysticism no better than some, no worse than some, that can
be understood ON ITS OWN TERMS by Jew and non-Jew alike, without some
pompous Anglo-Saxon to tell the world (Jews included) how useless it was
until he came along and supplied the syncretic kety to knowledge. 

> I heard a story once, a 'pagan' meeting discussed which was the 
> largest pagan faith in the UK. 'Odinism' vied with 'Dianism' for a 
> while until the only gentleman present who was from the real world 
> said 'Hindus'.

So true. 

Now, all i ask is that you keep this story in mind as you consider the
number of times you have heard or will hear (if UK
neo=paganism/hermeticism is anything like USA neo-paganism/hermeticism)
that the Freemasons have "lost the keys" to their own initiatic
mysteries or that the Jews "no longer really undertsand the kabbalah." 

> Practical Kabbalah is many things to many people - and the Kabbalists
> have rejected many such elements as 'illegitimate' even though the 
> likes of Abulafia were using processes dangerously similar. 

There is no uniform group called "the kabbalists." This is a straw dog
argument. 

> [...] the Kabbalists themselves DENY these [magical, a.k.a 
> "practical" elements belong to them - but they are exactly the 
> portions most interesting to us. How is it wrong for me
> to say it is legitimate to use them, and they aren't specifically
> Jewish, but okay for Scholem to say exactly the same thing?

Whoah. You are making up these condemnatory Kabbalist straw dogs to
bolster your point. Name 'em or drop 'em. 

Let's take a real, not an imaginary, look at a bit of the practical
kabbalah that Crowley didn't even seem to know existed. It deals with
the use of the Psalms as invocations for magical effect. One famous book
on this topic, Gottfreid Seelig's 18th century "Secrets of the Psalms:
Fragments of the Practical Kabbalah" is specifically magical in intent.
You can read more about the book and its author at
    http://www.luckymojo.com/secretspsalms.html 


Now this book, which is exactly what it purports to be -- a portion of 
Jewish mystical system called the kabbalah -- is widely accepted among
Jewish magicians without any attempt to label it illegitimate. More
remarkably, it is used by many African-Americans as well, having been
long ago integrated into the folk-magic system known as hoodoo. The
reasons for this and similar cultural cross-overs are detailed at
     http://www.luckymojo.com/hoodoo.html 

"Secrets of the Psalms: Fragments of the Practical Kabbalah" is still in
print, although the author's name has been Anglicized to "Godfrey Selig"
by most publishers since the 1930s.  I myself sell it through my Lucky
Mojo Curio Co. 
    http://www.luckymojo.com/mojocatBOOKS.html 

Now, tell me why, if the practical kabbalah is so in disrepair and
disrepute among Jews, has this book been in print continuously since the
1770s? 

Tell me why, if you can, the African-Americans who utilize this book in
their magical workings openly acknowledge that it is Jewish? (See, for
example and proof, the above cited page 
     http://www.luckymojo.com/hoodoo.html
where a Louisiana-born African-American magician of the late 1930s is
quoted apparently referring to the book.)

Why is it that those Europeans with the oldest history of
legally-enforced anti-semitism (England expelled its Jews in the 13th
century, 200 years befor they were forced out of Spain) presume most
often to opine that Jews consider the practical Kabbalah "illegitimate? 

> Kabbalah is not the source of EQ, it is a parallel.
> 
> AL is the source of EQ, as the Torah and Talmud is the source of
> Kabbalah.

Sorry, but you are quite in error to label the Torah and Talmus "the
"source of kabbalah." Kabbalah is a mystical system which -- among many
other things -- seeks to interpret those texts. It also seeks to
interpret the real world and a number of visionary worlds. It seeks to
construct a cosmology. It seeks to afford [practical rules for magical
processes, for divinitory readings from nature, and so forth. The part
of it concerned with number-symbolism is most closely tied to those
texts you name, but those texts -- and number-symbolism as well, are not
the whole sum of kabbalistic thought. 

Perhpas you have confused gematria for the whole of kabbalah? Sometimes
i think this is the problem with the Bennet-Crowley-Mathers take on
Jeiwsh mysticism. They -- and you -- seem to see kabbalah as a
numbers-game only. They didn't get the big picture. Do you?

catherine yronwode

Lucky Mojo Curio Co: http://www.luckymojo.com/luckymojocatalogue.html
The Lucky W Amulet Archive: http://www.luckymojo.com/luckyw.html  
Sacred Sex: http://www.luckymojo.com/sacredsex.html
The Sacred Landscape: http://www.luckymojo.com/sacredland.html
Freemasonry for Women: http://www.luckymojo.com/comasonry.html 
Comics Warehouse: http://www.luckymojo.com/comicswarehouse.html 
check out news:alt.lucky.w for discussions on folk magic and luck