The Roots of the Kabbalah

The Qabalistic system of methodology was taught by those Orders or Schools that Christian F). Ginsberg mentions: the school of Gerona, a school supposedly being the cradle of the Qabalah, and based upon the teachings of Isaac the Blind; the school of Segovia, founded by Jacob Segovia; the Quasi-Philosophic school founded by Isaac Allatif; and the school of Abulafia and the Zohar school. And finally it is said that the Qabalah was also made known among the -Christians by Raymond Lully the great Alchemist (1236- 1315) who regarded it as a divine science ("Ars Magna" as he referred to it). The Qabalistic methodology was no doubt taught by the Essenes, Knights Templar, Alchemists, and Rosicrucians, where we are given to understand that the true aristocracy of culture and learning was based on the intrinsic faculties and not on mere objective or external qualifications. This is in contrast to today where we are led to believe that a man with a Ph.D. is wise, whereas he may in fact only hold the degree because he has paid for it with money and time and effort in the institution of "higher learning." If he has wisdom it is incidental to his degree and often in spite of it. Sagacity is a quality of Chokmah, the Qabalist would say, and may act in concert with the intellect, but the intellect does not acquire it merely by the exercise of learning.

In the great works of the past we see that all of the Orders taught the Qabalistic use of myth, symbolism, and allegory, which are the indispensable instruments of the esotericist who realizes that while truth may be a product of the intellect, still, human apperception does not come through the intellect alone. It is only the very few who acquire genuine mercurial genius, due to the fact that the mercurial principle is known only by members of the genuine (or real) esoteric Orders. This does not hold as true today, however, as it did in the past, and this is due to the relaxation of the prohibitions against publishing some of the more elementary practices of Tantra Yoga.

None of the publications are very specific on the regenerative and/or reformative aspects of Tantra, but more is known than formerly about this body of Yoga. "The little known" leaves us with "the much to be desired" however, so we may not be as well off with partial information as with none at all. Perhaps the inspiring presence of the Tibetan Lamas here in the West now, will infiltrate our collective unconscious with ideas ("Dark Familiars") made in the images of the gods of Tantra. Here in the West sex has just now come of age, so now we are all acting like little children who have just been granted our first privilege of staying out after 10 o clock on Saturday night. We will not be capable of practicing Tantra as it was understood in Tibet, until our collective unconscious has been conditioned to "see" luminosity in the human body.

Inasmuch as this world is a dynamic energy system, then not any "thing" in this world is what it appears to be to the five physical senses. The human body is a luminous creation-a lump of dynamic points of energy. If we keep this in mind when we use this body to practice Yoga, any form of Yoga, we may be able to keep some of the personal equation out of the way. Yoga a deux is being practiced willy-nilly in the West today, but personal attraction has more to do with choice of partners than does level of awareness.

In this case, to use Jung’s term, it is more likely to be an anima-animus encounter, so regeneration and transmutation of energy cannot be said to be the sole purpose and interest of the relationship. But The Self is impersonal in the world of form and cannot be made to serve human goals.

The Qabalah is a growing body of knowledge and continues to be studied today. Much new material has been added in the last 100 years, but most of it has been done by scholars who are outside traditional Judaism. Just when it was that the Qabalah ceased to be a purely Judaic curiosity and was adopted by non-Jews, is difficult to pinpoint. We do know that in the early Christian era, Judaism was considered to be as "pagan" as the Greek mysteries or the Mithraic practices. The intensity of Christian feeling forced all of them to go underground together. Being persecuted together, they sought each other’s company for mutual protection, with resulting cross-fertilization of ideas. In any event, when they surfaced just before the Renaissance, the Qabalah was an accepted part of Alchemy, the Hermetic Art. It can be interesting here to note that the first flowering of Alchemy occurred at least 100 years before the Renaissance started. This means that we cannot say that the Renaissance caused a new interest in Alchemy, because Alchemy preceded the Renaissance. It is more likely that the Alchemists were the stimulus for the Renaissance. The Alchemists of any age are always the freedom fighters in the spiritual underground, ready to push the culture off dead center when organized religion is beginning to lose its restrictive hold on the society, so the Alchemists gave the urge to the Renaissance. This follows Qabalistic doctrine about the pioneers of a life wave that precede humanity in all things.

From this time on much of Alchemy was based on the Qabalah, and the Qabalah in turn was enriched by the discoveries of the Alchemists. Since that time, Alchemy and the Qabalah have traveled together and complemented each other. Each is a complete system, but the Qabalah stresses the study of philosophy, while Alchemy is oriented to its practice. One might say that Alchemy is the practical application of the theory in the Qabalah, much as modern engineering is the application of science. Alchemy has its own long and varied history, and is a complete system that deserves separate treatment.

It developed out of its pagan roots independently of the Qabalah, at least until the Christian era, when the Alchemists began to absorb the Qabalah into their thought. At any rate, the Qabalah was kept alive throughout the Renaissance by the Alchemists, especially Raymond Lully, Thomas Vaughn, Robert Fludd, and the great Paracelsus.

Extract taken from Chapter II, Occult Psychology by Alta J. LaDage