Studying Kabbalah

I have some knowledge of Kabbalah, and use it in magik and tarot, but I would like to study it more, The tree of life and the use of Kabbalah. What would be the best books to look into for studying Kabbalah and using it to its full advantage particularly in magik

Israel Regardie's books are accessible to the beginner although he tends to run on the verbose end. Also, if you do searches, spell it with a "q" and your hits should be more relevant for you.

night queen:

this site is a good start...

http://www.digital-brilliance.com/kab/index.htm


fly well
ravenswing

Hmmmm. Since Kabbalah originated in the 12th century, I'm not sure there is such a thing as Hermetic Kabbalah.

I do like the book "Kabbalistic Handbook for the Practicing Magician" by Joseph Lisiewski. The author's reverence is for Eliphas Levi is surprising, but the bulk of the book is interesting and informative. You should probably read the same Author's Ceremonial Magic as well, to understand where he's coming from. KHPM is hard to come by these days since the mess at New Falcon, but I was told to expect a new printing of the book in August.

UPDATE: New Falcon now lists it for sale (it was formerly out of stock):
http://newfalcon.com/kabbalistichandbookforthepracticingmagician.aspx

back again

You might want to check out the Tarot of Ceremonial Majick. You can take a look at it here:

http://lexic.ru/WWPCM/decks05/d02378/d02378.htm


fly well
ravenswing

Greg Stanton said:

Hmmmm. Since Kabbalah originated in the 12th century, I'm not sure there is such a thing as Hermetic Kabbalah.

I do like the book "Kabbalistic Handbook for the Practicing Magician" by Joseph Lisiewski. The author's reverence is for Eliphas Levi is surprising, but the bulk of the book is interesting and informative. You should probably read the same Author's Ceremonial Magic as well, to understand where he's coming from. KHPM is hard to come by these days since the mess at New Falcon, but I was told to expect a new printing of the book in August.

UPDATE: New Falcon now lists it for sale (it was formerly out of stock):
http://newfalcon.com/kabbalistichandbookforthepracticingmagician.aspx

Click to expand...

Hermetic Qabala is an offshoot of the original Jewish Kabbalah. (Just like the Christian-based Cabbala is an offshoot of the original Jewish Kabalah). The Hermetic version is only about 150 years old but that is the one with the tarot correspondences. There are similarities to all 3, with differences to match particular purposes. They all stem from the ancient Jewish version, though, thus the Hebrew characters.

I hope this helps.

Hermeticism is an umbrella term and includes the Kabbalah in my mind.

Thank Pico Della Mirandola for this

This book explains all you need to know -- though I should warn you that this author is controversial and very opinionated:

http://www.amazon.com/Kabbalistic-H...bs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230824949&sr=8-1

Lon Milo DuQuette's book makes a good companion to the above:

http://www.amazon.com/Chicken-Qabal...2153/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1230825075&sr=1-1

Both of these books are as basic as it gets, and both do a good job editing out what is not pertinent to the Western "magickal" tradition.

The crowned one said:

Hermeticism is an umbrella term and includes the Kabbalah in my mind.

Thank Pico Della Mirandola for this

Click to expand...

It may be an umbrella term as in "Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn" (it wasn't), but the term officially refers to philosophical and religious teachings attributed to Hermes (Trismegistus) -- not related to the authentic Jewish Kabbalah in any way.

However, after doing some research, I have found that recently the system of Kabbalah used by the Golden Dawn, BOTA, Thelema, etc., is now referred to as "Hermetic Kabbalah." I don't know who invented this phrase, but they should be called out, IMHO.

This from Wikipedia:

"Hermetic Qabalah draws on a great many influences, most notably: Jewish Kabbalah, Western astrology, Tarot, Alchemy, pagan religions (especially Egyptian and Greco-Roman), neoplatonism, gnosticism, the Enochian system of angelic magic of John Dee and Edward Kelley, hermeticism, rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, and tantra. It differs from the Jewish form in being a more admittedly syncretic system, however it shares many concepts with Jewish Kabbalah."

Sure sounds familiar. Hermetic Kabbalah is neither Hermetic or Kabbalah. Kind of like Corinthian Leather, which is really vinyl made in New Jersey.

Greg Stanton said:

It may be an umbrella term as in "Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn" (it wasn't), but the term officially refers to philosophical and religious teachings attributed to Hermes (Trismegistus) -- not related to the authentic Jewish Kabbalah in any way.

Click to expand...

Jewish Kabbalah was developed during the Hellenistic period in Ancient Israel, so there would be some cross over. See Gershom Scholom and Hermeticism (Late Antiquity).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Roman_history_of_ancient_Israel_and_Judah

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeticism