Daemon said:
The whole Q idea came from that the kuf is pronounced at the back of the throat like a Q. The former is correct, the latter is not. Q is actually pronounced at the front of the throat if you have any sense.
??? I gather this is an objection to qof being our Q? The decision was made when the alef-bet was formed: Q, Irish
quert the ‘apple’ (a
second or
doubled K [C, if you’re Irish, which I’m not]), pictures
in Phoenician and
in English (meaning Latin) the fruit and stem thereof, while the square-Hebrew qof itself represents the shape of the womb, apple’s symbolic meaning (fruit), complete with the two openings linked thereto, navel and birth canal (facing left).
[This is because its
original station was virgo the virgin or womb, not pisces the back of the neck (or feet).
]
jmd said:
. . . works such as 'Greek Qabalah' that have, in any case, adopted the term for reasons of partial overlap and popularity rather than intrinsic Kabalistic considerations (a better rendition would have been 'Greek Gematria' - but then, I doubt the book would have achieved the sales it deserved).
I agree. But to me that title does reflect and perhaps help perpetuate a common misconception that the two are linked or identical.
The lists of 'correlations' that many assign to the Tree of Life is not in itself Kabalah (nor 'Qabalah'), but rather assigned correlations, in the same manner that Tarot, Kabalah and Astrology remain independent, even if various correlations are proposed, suggested or even worked.
Exception, though, would be the correlations of the original tradition: one wouldn’t want, I think, to throw out the baby with the bath-water. The problem has always been to determine
empirically—that is, by conjoining results of scholarship to
common sense (always a rarity)—what that original tradition was and sprang from.
It can be established with complete solidity—based not
just on what little the sages revealed but on the amazing patterns that fall into place once the assumption is made—that Tarot of Marseilles trumps are based not just on bardically numbered tree-letters but on these
arranged as in Qabbalah, that is, as per the stipulations of
Sefer Yetzirah (Merkavah tradition) distinguishing simples from doubles and mother-letters. This, then, leads inevitably to applying suit-symbols to worlds, and the fit there is also exact: in the case of the material or Asiyah world, coins or
rounds indicate the physical
cycles that form the ladder from today (
10, or equatorial-diurnal revolution) to eternity (
1, or that which is even longer than the great year,
2).
I have found, albeit at a depth frankly not normally reached these days, that the tradition (Qabbalah) embodied by the Kabbalah (what has survived) points inexorably to the
origin of certain traditions in astrology. The simplest example (which therefore took me the longest to discover) is that the signs in which the planets are exalted in astrology show the three male-female pairs on the common Tree as opposites if we (1) follow the Hermetic manner of assigning planets to Sefirot, based on common sense (length of cycle), and (2) raise sol to its proper station at
2, where as great year—‘precession’—it compasses both year (
6) and day (
10), being the relationship
between annual (ecliptic) and diurnal (equator). Hence
2/sol/gold and
3/Saturn/lead are exalted in aries/up and libra/down, respectively (duh) . . .
4/Jupiter/tin and
5/Mars/iron are exalted in cancer/forward and capricorn/back, respectively (jovial/gregarious/out-going versus martial/disciplined/drawn-in) . . . and
7/Venus/copper and
8/Mercury/mercury are exalted in pisces/approaching-up and virgo/approaching-down, respectively (for reasons not yet clear to me, other than that it is the
approach to the first pair).
These, however, show similarities, not identity, in that neither Kabalistic considerations nor Greek or Nordic workings have exact overlaps, and certainly these do not have similar metaphysical nor theological (in this term's broader sense) considerations.
(I would disagree on the metaphysical part: certain precise poetic equivalents, such as Freyr/Fro=
vron=Bran=fearn-the-alder=up/aries(corn-spirit)=samekh-the-head, are relevant, at the very
least in that they add perspective, reveal the inner shape of the symbol
referred to in the Qabbalistic ‘model’.)
I would suggest . . . there is a single Kabalah that various individuals have used in various ways, and have investigated from various perspectives - but the source, and the impulse, is the same, and at its edges spills over into non-Kabalistic considerations, whether these be historical, foundational, or suggested links to other systems.
Though in sync with the spirit of what you are saying, I do not agree that there
is ‘a single Kabalah’, as it has split into fragments:
Bahir,
SY,
Zohar, Abulafia, Luria, etc. (just witness my referring to samekh, according to shape and alphabet-calendar considerations, as the sign aries, while
SY and alef-bet order place it rather at sagittary, the reason for its shift there being demonstrable, but not common knowledge). Much is taught today that is actually incorrect and stems from rabbinical speculation rather than Qabbalistic gnosis, such as the idea that eighth, the Tzaddiq/Yesod of the
Bahir, is but a misplaced
9/Yesod from zoharic tradition rather than the place Yesod or Foundation actually
is in the Atzilut world (as opposed to the Yetzirah world, where it is
9), as is proved by
Bahir’s linking it to circumcision on the eighth day. It is quite apparent to me that the true inner teaching, the Qabbalah, had more to do with the inner workings of alchemy’s Great Work—
tikkun, ‘restoration’—than with rabbinical theology alone, though once that deeper science is established, such things as the power of the Name become better understood, which led to its link to magic, a link embarrassing to many latter-day ‘Kabbalists’ because of poor imitations and a lack of deeper understanding.