Cabalah Primer

Not quite tarot, but... Anyone familiar with Henrietta Bernstein's book "Cabalah Primer"? I am working my way through this... seems a fair 'nuff and useful text, but was wondering e.g. if this book is in any way a "Standard" approach/text to the subject?

I don't know whether it's just *me*, but I tend to note that anything Tarot related seems to get rave reviews on the standard book sites. (5 stars!) I guess if people buy things, they believe/like them? I find it a tad hard to believe (as in this case) that one of the Amazon "reviews" also appears verbatim on the back cover of this book? Hmmm

I had this book and couldn't understand it!! Now I'm not quite sure which it was but I either couldn't grasp what she was talking about in some sections or she just flat out didn't make sense.

I can't remember now exactly where (traded the book a while back), but there were times where she stated things that to her were easy to see (some kinds of comparisions) that I didn't catch at all.

Things about how because this matched that (sorry I can't be more specific) -- that proved that something else was true. Well I could never see the match.

Now see here -- I've probably confused all of you with my explanation, just like she did with me!!! ROFL

Anyway I just couldn't even get through the book! It made NO sense to me. Hope your having better luck Macavity!!

number play

i've got this one. it's been a bit of time since i've gone through it. it deals with a lot of number/word play-- have you dealt much with gematria before this book? that would make it easier.

no, this is not a 'standard' approach, but it is a valid one. it develops an english-based gematria, then goes on to some pretty deep math play.

i've also got one of the books by w. eisen that is mentioned in the introduction. the 'cabalah primer' is an introduction to eisen's system.

now that you brought to to my attention, i think i'm going to re-read it. keep in touch, maybe we can work out the rough spots together.

raven

i got this one! ravenswing sent it to me
but i decided i wanted to read the Dion Fortune book "The mystical qabalah" first and since i read so slow these days i still haven't gotten to it.
it seems to be dealing a lot with numbers and that can scare me a bit.
(i got some mild form of dycalci or however you say it)
numbers are always jumping away from my eyes somehow. but i'll get to it this year at least!

Well, I think maybe the author will have to try hard to convince me that: 1,297,820 = A BIG H20 (sic!) = CEE = SEA = BIG WATER etc. But indeed, I am new to the gematria idea. Fwiw, it might work well with my BAD reading technique, which is to dip in here and there and in NO particular order. So perhaps more anon... or on some other matter.

Thanks for the encouragement

Mac
---
O Horus, bright-eyed deity of the wind,
Feather my soul through earth's thick air,
To know thy awful swiftness...

a big stretch

mac--

quite agree with you on the water take. there's others that i take with a grain of salt (maybe the whole shaker ) i also have trouble with exchanging zero and 'o'.

before i found this book, i had worked an english gematria. i used the same as the alpha substitution, but i gave each word three values. the total word value, the value of the vowels and the value of the consonants.

i found this to define a word finer than just one value. and it opened a whole math field i call ' the geometry of words'. i'm working out a manuscript6 on this-- the gematric metaverse, as i call it.

one of the greatest finds is that 'gematria' is what i call equivalent to 'tarot'. that is, all three of the word values are the same. makes for a good meditation...

i've been working this out for almost twenty years; it's about time i get it into a coherent form.

perhaps i should start up a thread on this...

raven

Interesting stuff

Very interesting, Ravenswing. Maybe you *should* revive a thread on this - Or finish that book?

Just as a qualifier, my occasional "Oh yeah?" incredulity, in the case of H20 and now ZERO, doesn't seek to merely trash an UNDERLYING principle. I imagine, coming from the historical perspective, neither "H2O" nor "zero" were familiar to ancients? Fwiw, I am fully prepared to believe in SOME kind of "received" or (wo)man *devised* wisdom... and encoded somehow.

Funnily enough, I was thinking about the vowel and consonant question as I was getting up this morning (As one does? Heheh!) I would imagine it reasonable to study vowels and consonants *seperately*, simply because the original (Semitic?) languages didn't WRITE the former. Egyptian Hieroglyphs e.g., as many may know, are a consonant backbone of language - as too is classical Hebrew? But I get a distinct feeling that some *Jewish* Kabalah(?) scholars are unhappy with aspects of "English" Cabalah?

BUT, As a thought, I recall a TV program where they tried to work back to some kind of "proto" world language - The language of an HISTORIC "Adam or Eve"? This prompted by observation of the similarity of BASIC vocabularly between ALL present day languages. The gist being e.g. "water" (as with many other words) is almost the SAME in so many languages: "Water", "Wasser", Vodka(!), "Woda", "Vod"? And without the consonants: "WD", even "VD" maybe? LOL. But perhaps with the *same* Gematric value?

So, imo you may WELL be onto something! I'd be happier without the notion that God was an Englishman - However PROBABLE that may be.

Mac

vowels and consonants

mac--

consider this one.

let's look at the set of vowels as the 'identity principle' -- ie, it sets the definition of a group of consonants. for example the consonant grouping THR.

by placement of vowels, we can give 'meaning' to this grouping:
THRee THeRe THeiR oTHeR.

i see the fool as the identity principle of the tarot, so i equate it wiht the set of vowels. that leaves us with 21 consonants-- one for each trump. in this way i can equate english letter to the trumps just as the hebrew is equated.

yes, i should get this all compiled better.

i'll get back to you later...
raven

Hi Raven et al.,

Just a few more random thoughts. I came across the other threads here on the K/Calabah, which proved to be most interesting. Also further reading of Bernstein's book more has revealed the answer to some of my questions posed here. I remain nevertheless somewhat (very?) sceptical in general of some of these later schemes devised e.g. the Golden Dawn. To me, the *critical* assignment is correspondance between numbers and letters and tarot. If this is made wrongly, right at the start, then I suspect the whole thing kinda falls down - as do the next thousand or so pages "proving" the theory works? Ah Well

From a post on one of the threads (ISTR one of JMD's - thanks indeed!) pointing to:
http://www.digital-brilliance.com/kab/
and then to Colin Low's (imo) BRILLIANT PDF format online book at:
http://www.digital-brilliance.com/kab/nok/index.htm
In Chapter 7: "The Tarot and the Tree" he tells me exactly what I wanted to know and esp. why (IMO) the Golden Dawn method of grafting (sic) onto the Jewish Kabalah has (at least one?) fatal flaw. For those interested this is also discussed in the "Paths" chapter and described as a "glaring defficiency". Aside: It's all to do with the way correspondance between Hebrew letters and paths are assigned - and (imo) how to say this kindly... Uhm, wrongly?

That said, Colin Low also includes a quite remarkable method of tarot assignment in a new "fool's journey" (due to Alan Bain) that actually DOES fit the tree quite well. Tantalizing indeed! The question as to whether Hebrew is indeed the original "language of God" and whether it is possible to have an "English" cabalah (Gematria) is *also* discussed by Low. He concludes (as I?) that this is perhaps possible if indeed language is an inate consequence of our very being. Well, It wouldn't surprise me! But perhaps the subjects of Kaballah (Sic), Tarot, Gematria and more particularly the Golden Dawn "Cabalah" should be treated as rather seperate (albeit interesting and worthy) entities? I increasingly suspect they are. The question then becomes: Do I really have the time for ALL these new interests!

Mac.

P.S. For anyone interested, Here's the Alan Bain modified tree reference:
http://static.spiritweb.org/KeysToKabbalah/