Kabbalah:

The word Kabbalah is derived from the Hebrew rootקבל (QBL) which means to receive and thus signifies the passing on of a tradition between initiates from ‘mouth to ear’. The word is seen used as early as in the Talmud where it is applied to the extra-Pentateuchal parts of the Torah. It was, however, not until around the 14th century that the word Kabbalah became the most common word for the esoteric tradition within Judaism. [1] Traditionally this esoteric tradition is regarded as containing the divine wisdom which God gave to Adam, Abraham and Moses and which they have passed on through history to the initiated elders as the secret oral law of Israel.  

Kabbalah has had an enormous impact on western esotericism, religion, philosophy, science and art especially during the renaissance and up to the 19th century where we see developments of a Christian Kabbalah and a Hermetic Kabbalah. In the 20th century Gershom Scholem established the academic study of the Kabbalah within the field of the History of Religion.

Below the reader will find a brief survey of the classical fourfold division of the Kabbalah.

The Fourfold Divisions of the Kabbalah

The Kabbalah has been divided into four divisions known as: a. the Theoretical or Dogmatic Kabbalah. b. The Meditative Kabbalah. c. The Practi­cal or Magical Kabbalah. d. The Literal Kabbalah.

a. The Theoretical or Dogmatic Kabbalah

The Theoretical Kabbalah can be said to be the (esoteric) philosophy of the Kabbalah.

“The theoretical deals with the form of the mysteries, teaching the structure of the angelic domains as well as of the Sefirot, or Divine Emanations. With great success, it deals with problems posed by the many schools of philosophy, and it provides a concep­tual framework into which all theological ideas can be fitted.” [2]

It is the Theoretical Kabbalah which concerns itself with theories or wisdom concerning the nature and development of things. It generally does this through three categories as W. W. Westcott sums them up by quoting Ginsburg:

“The great doctrines of the Theoretical Kabalah,” says Ginsburg, “are mainly designed to solve the problems of (a) the nature of the Supreme Being, (b) the creation of the Uni­verse and of our world, (c) the creation of angels and man, (d) the destiny of the world and of men, and (e) the import of the revealed law.”“ [3]

b. The Meditative Kabbalah

The Meditative Kabbalah focuses on different techniques for attaining spiritual liberation. These techniques include meditation, contemplation, manipulation of letters and num­bers and the use of diagrams (Sk. Yantras) and power words or God words (Sk. Mantra). [4]

c. The Practical or Magical Kabbalah

The Practical Kabbalah deals with ceremonial magic, rituals, invocations, evocations, the manipulation of elemental forces and talismans. The Practical Kabbalah is thus also known as Talismanic and Kabbalistic Magic.

Much use is made in Kabbalistic magic of the correct pronunciation of the names of God. The names themselves hold the power to perform great achievements. The entire Torah from beginning to end is a Name of the Deity; however, it is not in the correct order. If one were to determine the correct order he would be able to perform acts of miraculous proportions. It is not that God is obligated to discharge the desires of the speaker but the utterance itself contains the key to the power. This stems from the belief that by sound the universe was made manifest. An interesting name is the Shem Ham­porash, the Name of Extension. It is found in Exodus chapter 14 verses 19 through 21. This passage deals with the parting of the Red Sea by Moses. In the original Hebrew the verses each contain 72 letters which form the Shem Hamporash.

Qabbalistic magic relies heavily on ritual observance, colors, scents, and symbols as well as the Names of God, the Arch-angels, etc. which belong to the Sephira in which the magi­cian is operating. Individuals who are in search of enlightenment use the “Path of the Arrow” or straight up the center of the Tree of Light while others who are in search of power or other physical manifestations utilize the “Flash of Lightning” or the descent of power. In work of this nature it is necessary to work in the opposite Sephira to maintain the balance of Nature.

Success in Kabbalistic magic is predicated on the surrender to the Divine will. Much use is made of fasting and other forms of purification.

d. The Literal Kabbalah

The Literal Kabbalah concerns itself with the manipulation of letters and numbers in order to find secret wisdom in the scriptures. To Jewish mystics, every letter in the Hebrew alphabet is a channel to the life force of God and posses of sacred mean­ing. Hebrew numbers are also represented by letters so that names and words have numerical values. Finding associations of words with the same value reveale a com­plex series of hidden meanings beneath the text of the Torah, the book of law attributed to Moses.

There are three general methods of the literal Kabbalah:

1. Gematria

The word Gematria comes from the Greek geometria and Aramaic gematrya' geometry. It is a system of interpreting the scriptures by finding the numerical value of a word or words and their correspondence to a word or words, which have the same numerical value. As said above each of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet designate a number, this means that one word can have the same numerical value as another word when the letters of words are added together.

Gematria is thus generally the calculation of the numerical equivalence of letters, words, or phrases and, on that basis, a gaining, insight into interrelation of different con­cepts and exploring the interrelationship between words and ideas.

Since according to the Kabbalah the world was created through God’s “speech,” each letter represents a different creative force. Thus, the numerical equivalence of two words reveals an internal connection between the creative potentials of each one.

The four basic ways of Gematria are:

• Absolute Value
• Ordinal Value
• Reduced Value
• Integral Reduced Value

Yet another method of Gematria is that of using arithmetical values of words and phrases for interpretation of scriptures. However, this method is seldom used due to its diffi­culty.

2. Notariqon

Notariqon also spelled Notaricon, Notarikon is the second method and comes from the Latin word notarius which means stenographer. One method of Notariqon consists in selecting a word and then taking each of its letters to stand for another whole word, thus making of the letters of the selected word a whole sentence. A second method con­sists of using the first and last letters of a selected word to form another word; or the two medial letters of the selected word.

3. Temurah

Temurah is Hebrew and means: changing, exchanging, permutation. It consists of sub­stituting another letter of the alphabet in place of one or more letters in a selected word; the change yielding a word of quite different meaning. The letters of the Hebrew alpha­bet are placed in two lines (11 in each line alphabetically), one below the other; the top line reading from right to left, the lower reading from left to right. The key-letter that is selected (any of the 22) is placed under the first letter of the alphabet. A word is then chosen for re-reading: the letter which appears in the opposite line to the one designated is substituted -- and a new word is made by this process. Thus a table of 22 commuta­tions results from Tamurah, and this series is called Tsiruph, from the verbal root tsaraph to refine, examine, prove, interpret.