[History of Kabbalah - Steve Wilson Lecture Review]

A summary...

As it turned out, the speaker didn't turn up - but Steve Wilson gave
an impromptu lecture on the history of the Qabbala which was probably
much more interesting and useful than Stephen Skinner's lecture would
have been.  Here's a brief summary, from memory.

Jewish Mysticism - as it is known today - began to develop after the
diasphora (sp?) - the migration of Jews out of Israel following the
disasterous failure of the rebellions against the Romans in the 1st
Century CE.  The Sephardic Jews travelled through Africa, eventually
entering Europe through Spain, while the Ashkenazy Jews went North,
through the Balkans, Russia and Eastern Europe.

The Sephardic Jews developed a technique of meditation in which the
mystic would sit, bending forward onto the knees, in a manner which
partially restricts the breathing.  He would visualise a journey
through various "gates", each of which was guarded by angelic figure,
and each representing a particular aspect of creation.  In other
words, a pathworking.

This later developed into the glyph known in the West as the "Tree
of Life", consisting of ten "Sephiroth".  This was understood to be
a representation of how everything is created, or manifested, from
moment-to-moment: *not* a static picture of an historical act of
creation in the past, at the beginning of time - as it has been
interpreted in many Western Qabbalistic schools.  Furthermore, the
original metaphor was that of a RIVER flowing down from Kether (the
Crown) - *not* of a tree growing upwards from Malkuth (the Kingdom,
or the Earth).  Hence Steve's comment on the western misconception
of the Qabbala: "The Tree of Life is upside-down!"

The source of the "River of Life", as it might be more correctly
described, is Kether, the Crown.  This represents undifferentiated
divine creativity, the ineffable, incommunicable essence of all
things.  From this mystical point, the river flows in two streams,
white and red - representing "purity" (or spirit) and materiality.
They are considered *equal*; it is not a good/bad duality.  These
streams lead to the Sephiroth Binah and Chockmah: Wisdom and Under-
standing, which correspond, more or less, to the human faculties of
intuition and practical knowledge.  From there onwards, the two
streams tumble over a waterfall - the Abyss - in which they both
merge and separate, leading to the remaining sephiroth.

While this sustem was flourishing in North Africa and Spain, the
Ashkenazy Jews of eastern Eurpope were developing various esoteric
methods of seeking hidden meanings in the Torah - e.g., Gematria.
The two big communties were very isolated, and their versions of
spoken Hebrew diverged.  Communication of ideas took a long time -
via their common connections in Israel.  Eventually, an enormous
body of esoteric lore from both communities was compiled into a
massive work called the Zohar - which appeared in the 14th century.

Rennaisance scholars discovered the Qabbala at about this time.  In
fact, they thought that they had obtained complete translations of
the Zohar, when in fact, they only had about 5 per cent of it!  They
proceeded to impose their own Christian interpretations upon the
Qabbala, and conceived the immensely arrogant idea that they could
then use the system as a means of converting the Jews :-(

Rennaisance esotericists like Pico della Mirandola understood the
word "Sephiroth" to mean "spheres" (the Hebrew meaning is quite
different, but I forget what it is), and tried to relate them to
the  planets, in accordance with Ptolemaic actronomy.  According to
this world view, the Earth was the centre of the Universe, and was
surrounded by a concentric series of transparent crystal spheres,
in each of which was embedded one or other of the various celestial
bodies: first the Moon, the Mercury, then Venus, and so on.

Thus, for instance, Netzach ("victory") had to be associated with
Venus, while Yod ("Splendour") was identified with Mercury.  These
attributions are inevitably arbitrary and illogical.  Mars would
seem far more appropriate for Netzach, for example.  In general,
the planetary attributions do not fit.  Steve also dismissed the
widespread belief that the 22 Major Arcana of the Tarot deck are
pictorial representations of the 22 paths between the sephiroth,
corresponding to the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet.  In early
versions of the Tarot, there were as many as 40 cards in the Major
Arcana; and many of the traditional attributions do not make any
sense at all.  Steve criticised the use of the Qabbala as a sort
of "filing cabinet" of correspondences, which obscures its true
simpicity and power.

In the earliest original texts on the Sephiroth, the term "Daath",
or knowledge, actually referred to *all* the Sephiroth below the
top three - Kether, Chockmah and Binah - i.e., below the "Abyss".
Daath had no sinister connotations at this time.  Occultists of the
19th Century located Daath in the Abyss, which, in Christian terms,
was identified with the "Dark night of the Soul"; the narrow and
slender path across a terrifyingly empty and desolate wasteland.
In the meditations of Western Qabbalists, thinking that the only
proper way to traverse the "tree" was to climb from the base and
material world of Malkuth (*Not* derided in the original texts),
to Kether, the passage of the Abyss was puzzling, because they
found something there - a feeling of great energy and power.  So
they called it Daath: a hidden, 11th Sphere.  It was interpreted
by some as repesenting the arrogant human intellect, refusing to
submit to the self-abandonment of union with Kether.  But if we
look back to the original metaphor of the river, the source of
the mysterious sense of energy and power becomes clear: it is the
tumultuous waterfall, where the twin streams of Chockmah and Binah
combine in an endless flux of creation.

One final point of interest: In Eisenman's recently published
translations of certain Dead Sea Scroll texts, the names of most
of the Sephiroth appear in a section discussing the mystical life
of the Qumran community - which existed at the time of Jesus, and
of which Jesus was almost certainly a representative, a member or
(at the very least) an ally.  This predates the first known
Qabbalistic writings by some 400 years, and indicates that the
system is far older than is commonly supposed.

Well, that is the gist of what I learned from Steve's talk.  I
hope he's going to write a book about it sometime!

Andrew :-)*