#Christian Cabala

[eyeoftheheart]

“With its roots in Jacob’s ladder and elaborated in biblical Jewish merkavah mysticism, the doctrine known later in Greek as theosis is found in the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite, and Symeon the New Theologian, as well as the Jewish Kabbalah as demonstrated by Joseph Karo, the Baal Shem Tov and his disciples. In other words, Pico intends his angelology in these two works to be understood by the learned classes throughout Europe as a prescription to achieve union with the divine.

By “divine union,” what is meant? The final snapshot of this arduous and paradoxical, or perhaps even inconceivable journey is different in various traditions. Different from the ecstatic, fiery, yet agonizing transformation of the prophet Enoch into the archangel Metatron, called “a lesser YHVH” in 3 Enoch,7 or the graphic, luminous transformation of the mystical abbot of St. Mammas Monastery in Constantinople, Symeon the New Theologian (949–1022), into the Body of Christ in the tenth century CE,8 Pico’s vision of theosis was more akin to sharing God’s “mind stream.” That is, instead of a merger of the corporeal human aspirant into the incorporeal infinitude of the godhead, theosis for Pico was a kind of gnosis and a point of view that was simultaneously individuated and collectively unified. This can be seen in his description of ultimate divine union as possible while the philosopher is incarnate, more akin to a supremely exalted state of consciousness. While achieving a state like this necessitated neglect of bodily cares and desires according to Pico, he also asserted that this prescriptive formula for divinization actually purified the body as a dwelling place for the divine presence.”

Celestial Intelligences: Angelology, Cabala, and Gnosis: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's Quest for the Perennial Philosophy

[brother-hermes]

AWAKENING: DRUNKARDS & EMPTINESS

Before we approach the esoteric meaning behind the Wedding At Cana we need to look at the concept of drunkenness. To be full is to be content. Without thirst there would be no need for living water right. Let’s dive into why one must be empty of all understanding to receive. Rock with me as we take the journey within.

[alconvin]

If Foundation is the phallus and Indwelling is the vulva, then Beauty is the womb: the crucible in which opposites are unified.

[transcendentalsurrealism]

𝔄𝔫 𝔬𝔲𝔱𝔩𝔦𝔫𝔢 𝔬𝔣 ℭ𝔞𝔟𝔞𝔩𝔞, 𝔴𝔦𝔱𝔥 𝔠𝔬𝔩𝔬𝔯 𝔠𝔬𝔯𝔯𝔢𝔰𝔭𝔬𝔫𝔡𝔞𝔫𝔠𝔢𝔰

[mountain-sage]

"It really makes no difference what sadhana you practice, whether you practice Zen, or Taoism, or mystical Christianity, or Cabala. What you practice makes no difference. But what are you doing with the practice? Are you really diving deep within yourself and finding your own reality? Or are you still reading many books, going to many lectures, becoming totally confused?

Leave the world alone. Do not try to correct the world.

When I say correct the world, I mean correct people, places or things.

Everything has a tendency to balance itself. There are certain laws in this universe that take care of itself.

There's a power and a presence that knows the way, and you are told to surrender to this power, to this presence.

Complete surrender. Not my will, but thine. This is the highest teaching of any system.

When you give up your ego, totally surrender, and allow the powers that be to direct you, and guide you, and take care of you and unfold as you, everything will work out."

~ Robert Adams, (The Collected Work of Robert Adams)

[santoschristos]

Lilith is often portrayed as a succubus who comes in the night as a "wet dream", and many talismans were created to protect men from her seductions. Her offspring also continued to plague Adam's descendants as succubi or vampires. Some speculate that Lilith is the origin of the Vampire myth.

In symbolic terms, Lilith may represent the female sexual energy that is subverted, repressed, and diabolized in "sky god" patriarchy. Within the constraints of Judeo/Christian/Islamic ethics, too often sexual expression itself has become sublimated or perverse instead of being regarded as sustaining or generative. Viewed in this light, Lilith is also the collective shadow rage of both women and the denied “feminine” aspects of men as well!

It was my privilege to interview a Bay Area artist and musician, David Jeffers, who worked with Lilith as a healer and artistic inspiration. I was very moved by his observations.

"The pain of Lilith" he said, "is so much about the divinity of human pain. People often only identify with Lilith's rage, the woman who was cast out because She would not accept inequality. For me She is not that simple. If you can't go beyond Lilith's first door, which is rage, you're going to be stuck; you aren't going to penetrate the emotional mysteries beyond. Lilith is the most intelligent archetypal power to aid in understanding the mechanism that underlies our unconscious motivations, she is about the ability to connect the subconscious to the conscious mind, so that information can become usable in your life and on your path. Lilith is the bridge. People who are linear in their thinking suddenly find their world shattered when Eros shoots arrows at them. Or when they have an experience that is inexplicable or traumatic, something that cannot fit into the model they've organized their lives around. There are references in the Cabala to what is called "breaking the shell". The mind set of "what you believe" is the shell, and Lilith is about breaking the shell. You have to fall apart to be put back together; because that's the only way you can be reconstructed. You cannot veneer the teachings of Lilith on top of "who you think you are". --The Dark Goddess in Art and Myth, (2002)-Pagan Studies Conference.

[ariel-seagull-wings]

SEPHARDIC BNEI ANUSIM IN BRAZILIAN TELENOVELAS AND MINISSERIES

@themousefromfantasyland @gravedangerahead @tamisdava2 @princesssarisa @professorlehnsherr-almashy @the-blue-fairie @amalthea9 @faintingheroine @budcortfancam

A Converso, Marrano, New Christian, Crypto-Jew: these terms are intermittently applied to the men and women of 15th-17th century Spain and Portugal whose identities lingered somewhere between Jews and Christians.  In most cases, multiple labels can be used to describe the same individuals, because the boundaries between their identities were porous. For both contemporary observers and for modern historians, the label used reveals more about the labeler than about the phenomenon described.

Jews first settled in the Iberian Peninsula, (the region now known as Spain and Portugal) before the arrival of the Phoenicians in about 900 BCE. Jewish merchants settled along the coast of Spain during the time of King Solomon when this region was called Tarsus, or Tarshish. Iberia was referred to as Sefarad by its Jewish inhabitants and Hispania by the Romans from which the name “Spain” was later derived. More Jews immigrated after the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem. When the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem, there were already large well-established Jewish settlements throughout Iberia.

The first recorded persecution of Jews in Spain began about 489 CE when Jews were forbidden to marry non-Jews or to hold public office, and any children already born of inter-marriage were forcibly baptized into the Catholic Church.

From this time forward, the Iberian Jews were periodically subjected to progressively worse persecution until finally from 653 to 672 CE, Jews were beheaded, burned alive, or stoned to death for the crime of relapsing from forced conversion to Catholicism back into Judaism. It was during the period of 489 to 711, under Frankish and Visigothic rule, that Crypto Jews (Secret Jews) first emerged as a large group.

In 711 CE the Moors of northern Africa conquered the region and there resulted approximately three hundred years of what is known as the “Golden Age of Tolerance,” when the Muslim rulers coexisted with Jews and Christians. Non-Muslim people were allowed great freedom as long as they paid a special tax, to which the Jews gladly agreed. Jewish art, music, medicine, education and religious study flourished, and the Jewish population increased greatly and prospered, many Jews becoming fabulously rich and famous.

During the Golden Age, Spain became the world center for Talmudic Studies, with some of the world’s most famous rabbinical academies. Some of the greatest Jewish scholars lived in Moorish Spain during the years of transition just after the end of this period of time. Rabbi Abraham ben Meir Ibn Ezra was born in Tudela, Spain, in 1089. He was a poet, mathematician, grammarian, astronomer, commentator of Torah and philosopher. Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, known as “The Rambam” or “Maimonides,” was born in Cordoba, Spain, in 1135, and earned his living as a physician. He is most famous for his codification of Jewish law, entitled Mishne Torah, and for his philosophical work Guide for the Perplexed. Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, known as “The Ramban,” was born in 1194. He, like Maimonides, was a physician and scholar who was the first to incorporate Cabala, or Jewish mysticism, into the Torah teaching, and was a strong proponent of taking possession of the land of Israel. Jews and Crypto Jews flourished in relative peace and plenty, enjoying the Golden Age and the free exchange of ideas, a relatively high level of education for that time in the world, and the benefits from living among Torah and Talmudic scholars. Cities such as Lucena, Granada and Tarragona were populated by Jews magnificently wealthy in culture and material goods.

However, the so-called Golden Age in Spain was also marked by occasional violent upheavals and political turmoil that affected the Jews and Crypto Jews, who were subject to the whims of the frequently changing governments. For example, violence erupted in 1002, when two politically powerful and wealthy Muslims fought to rule Granada; unfortunately the Jews had backed the loser and suffered from Muslim suspicion thereafter. In 1066 a Jewish chief minister of Granada was crucified, followed by the slaughter of more than 1500 Jewish families. The original Moorish dynasty was overpowered by the fanatical Muslim Almoravides in 1086, who were in turn overpowered by the even more fanatical Muslim Almohades from Morocco in 1112. By 1149 the Almohades had overrun the entire peninsula which had become fragmented into about twelve small kingdoms. The lack of centralized control caused constant power struggles among neighboring kingdoms, such that the Almohades were unable to gain a strong hold on the peninsula.

Although the Jews had coexisted relatively peacefully with the Muslims, the Catholics bitterly resented the loss of Christian control of the peninsula since 711 and had perpetuated unrest and uprisings, and by 1212, outright rebellion. The centuries-long “Reconquista,” or reconquest, of the entire region was considered a holy obligation. Unfortunately, to the Christians, the Jews were identified with the death of their Christ and with the Muslim rulers under whom the Jews had enjoyed privilege and power. Also during this period of time, the Black Plague was ravaging Europe, killing as many as one in every four people, but far fewer of the Jewish population. Relatively few Jews died from the Plague perhaps because of better hygiene. Jews washed their hands before eating bread, bathed weekly prior to Shabbat and before holidays, washed their clothing regularly, maintained sanitary households (especially the kitchen and toilet facilities), consumed only fresh and kosher meats from healthy animals, were required to be distant from sewage and other forms of uncleanliness when reading Torah, and buried their dead within twenty four hours. All of these practices in combination with segregated all-Jewish neighborhoods provided some measure of protection from the Plague, albeit not total immunity. The Catholics did not observe such hygienic lifestyles, and seldom washed or bathed. The Catholics hated the Jews for their apparent immunity to the Plague, and widely believed the canard that the Jews were the source of the “Black Death” by poisoning wells.

The Catholics united against the Muslims who were absorbed in fighting one another and slowly took over most of the small kingdoms, one by one. Catholic rule was not kind to the Jews. Widespread pogroms in 1391 resulted in the deaths of fifty thousand Jews, such that, in fear for their lives, tens of thousands converted to Catholicism. These people were called “Conversos” (converts), “New Christians”, and “Maranos” (a derogatory term meaning “pig people.”)  In 1412, the Laws of Catalina were promulgated, which excluded Jews from any economic interchange with Christians.  From this time until the Edict of Expulsion in 1492, Jews were strictly confined to ghettos and had to wear identification badges prominent on the outside of their clothing.  Hard-pressed to survive, many Jews, perhaps as many as 600,000, converted to Christianity by the end of the fifteenth century.  Many of the New Christians were in reality Crypto Jews, outwardly Christians, but tenaciously and secretly practicing Judaism.

The Spanish Edict of Expulsion of 1492 stated that all Jews must leave the country. Those who stayed faced the Inquisition. A small number fled to Italy, Amsterdam, and the Americas, but most went to neighboring Portugal. When the Inquisition came to Portugal in 1496, the Jews were forced to leave, convert, or die. Of those Conversos who opted not to emigrate, many, if not most, were murdered by the “Holy” Inquisition. By 1500, estimates of as few as 40,000 and of more than 200,000 Jews were forced to leave the Iberian Peninsula. Exact numbers are not available because many of the Crypto Jewish family names had been changed after the pogroms of the 1300s in anticipation of future persecution.

The Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition continued for three hundred and fifty years. Accurate recorded accounts of the names, numbers, dates and punishments were kept by the officers of the Inquisition, such that today anyone who cares to recount the horrors may read of them. Of those Jews and Crypto Jews who chose to not leave, or could not afford to leave the Iberian Peninsula, many later bought passage or a commission on a sailing ship bound for safer destinations, preferably as far as possible from the nearest Office of the Inquisition.

Some purchased the proper documentation for “temporary” (which frequently became permanent) business trips to Italy or Germany, whereas poorer people fled to the north through the mountains and into France. Entire communities of “Portuguese Christians” were documented in southern France, while others continued northward to Amsterdam, England, Scandinavia, and eastward to the German provinces, Austria, Hungary and Poland. In most of these European destinations, these “Portuguese Christians” eventually revealed their true identity as Jews, and then subsequently blended into the established Jewish populations; thus, we do not find long histories of Crypto Judaism throughout Europe.

Many Jews and Crypto Jews immigrated to the New World, now known as the Americas, or the Western Hemisphere. Their choices were limited to the colonies of Spain and Portugal, so that when the Inquisition came to Peru in 1570, to Mexico in 1571, and to Cartagena in 1610, these same people were forced again to choose to convert or to die. The Inquisition spread throughout what is now the southern United States of America, Mexico, Central and South America, the islands of the Caribbean, and Cuba. No Jew or "Converso" was safe from suspicion, accusation and persecution, thus the numbers of Crypto Jews swelled to encompass almost all people of Jewish descent. The experience of the Crypto Jews in the Western Hemisphere was a litany of suffering, continual fear, social, political, professional, and religious suppression and murder. As late as the 1850s the Inquisition was finally officially ended in Mexico, and elsewhere a little sooner; however, overt discrimination and random incidents of lynching and murder continued until well into the 1950s in what we now call "Latin America".

The final result of approximately one thousand years of persecution and murder of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews (minus the three hundred years of the "Golden Age") caused many families who immigrated to the New World to become Crypto Jewish, while living their public lives as Catholics. In the Americas, some of the Crypto Jews reverted to being openly Jewish, only to find a few years later that the Inquisition had followed them to their new homes, and they were forced to go back into hiding again. All of these people, the "Conversos" or "New Christians", were forced to submit to Catholicism, thus in Hebrew they are referred to as the "Anusim" or "those who were forced."

It has been approximately fifteen-hundred years since the emergence of Crypto Jews in the Iberian Peninsula, and five-hundred years since Crypto Judaism moved to the Americas. Today we find a large Crypto Jewish presence throughout the Western Hemisphere. No one knows for sure how many there really are, however in Brazil alone an estimated 10 to 25% of the total population are Crypto Jews, which translates to 15 to 40 million people.

Some period setting audiovisual productions in Brazil took interest in the history of the Anusim during the colonial period, and two teleivision productions included Anusim characters as main figures in their narratives.

Xica da Silva (1996-97)

This telenovela produded by Rede Manchete, set in 18th century Brazil, told the story of Xica da Silva, a black woman who was born in Brazil and was enslaved, until a white and rich portuguese man named João Fernandes fell in love with her, made her his lover and gave her freedom, making her one of the most rich and powerfull people of Arraial of Tijuco (now the city od Diamantina, Minas Gerais).

Among the side characters who were part of Xica da Silva and João Fernandes's story, were the Pereira family, who were jewish people that came from Portugal to Brazil hoping to escape the Inquisition, and were atracted to the Arraial of Tijuco because of the diamonds that were found there.

Teodoro (António Marques) was the patriarch, Guiomar (Lídia Franco) was his wife (who threw tantrums when she saw a slave naked) and Joaquina (Rosa Castro André) and Graça (Anabela Teixeira) were his daughters.

Both sisters were in love with the gentile travelling merchant Felix (Jayme Periard) who, despite loving Graça, is forced by tradition to marry Joaquina (in a plot inspired by the hebrew tale of how Laban tricked Jacob to marry Leah, despite having promised the hand of Rachel).

Like most characters in the narrative, being to the historical period being portrayed on screen, the Pereiras were slave owners, and Teodoro sexually abuses Fatima (Ilea Ferraz), one of the black woman who is enslaved in his house, and this results in the conception of an illegitimate child.

Later, when Fatima falls in love with another enslaved black man named Jerônimo (Alexandre Moreno) the two join forces to find a plan to take revenge on the Pereira family and get their freedom.

This plan takes form during the visit of a representative of the Inquisition to Arraial of Tijuco: The two reveal to the Inquisitor that the Pereiras had a 7-pointed candlestick (which the representative recognizes as a description of the jewish menorah), hidden in a chest.

At the end of the telenovela, the Pereiras are put under arrest by orders of the Inquisitor, who will take them to trial in Portugal. Felix comes to rescue one of the women, and the baby he had with Joaquina. Joaquina is to ill to run with him trough the woods, so she sends her sister Graça (who she always knew was Felix's true love) to go with him and her child, and Guiomar asks her son-in-law to take away the family's menorah, so her grandson will always remember his jewish origin.

Xica da Silva was a story of black and gray morality: most characters were capable of being simpathetic, and also held prejudiced beliefs and take part in cruel acts, because those were normalized by the political system, rather than a question of individual morals.

This ambiguity was also shown in the Pereiras, who were both victims of opression for being targets of antisemitism, and perpetrators of opression for participating in the widespread enslavement of black people, when owning slaves was considered prestigious and respectable.

A Muralha (2000)

In the year of 2000, during the 500th anniversary of the arrival of the portuguese squad to brazilian shores (which started the proccess of colonization), Rede Globo produced a minisseries set in the early 17th century called A Muralha (literal translation The Wall, titled The Conquest for international markets) , based on a novel written by Dinah Silveira de Queiroz, that told about the everyday life of the people who lived trough the proccess of colonization, economic exploitation and territorial expansion led by the portuguese and their descendants born here, during the period known as "Bandeiras".

The point of view which we followed those stories was primarily of the women living through that period, and one of these women was the portuguese jewish Dona Ana Cardoso (Letícia Sabatella), who arrives in Brazil to get in an arranged marriage to Dom Jerônimo Taveira (Tarcísio Meira).

Dona Ana owes a moral debt to Dom Jerônimo: he is the brother of the inquisitor who saved her father from death in Portugal. Falsely converted to Catholicism and originally resigned to her fate, Dona Ana's resignation is put into question when she is courted by the rich merchant Dom Guilherme Shetz, a libertine man who lives in harmony with nature and the Indigenous people.

The man who marries Dona Ana, Dom Jerônimo, knows how to be a scoundrel and a pretender before the authorities, but he does not respect them, and he is foolish towards the priests, but in reality he is a cruel man, who imprisons Ana on his property to satisfy his most perverse desires.

After denouncing several residents to the Inquisition for alleged heresy, Dom Jerônimo orders the arrest of those who defy his authority, including Ana and Guilherme. To everyone's astonishment, everyone is condemned to the stake. But Guilherme stabs the villain, who ends up dead in one of the fires he lit himself.

Ana and Guilherme run to live in a cabin built in the woods, and end the story living happy, expecting their first child.

Another jewish character present in the narrative was the jolly Master Davidão (Pedro Paulo Rangel): whereas Ana is more resignated, Master Davidão, while also being carefull in hiding his jewish faith, is more confident and optimistic, not letting himself be afrayed of those in power.

His joifull personality and kidness eventually win the love of Antônia Brites (Claudia Ohana), a former prostitute who came to Brazil in search of a happy marriage, and at the end, having also survived the rage of Dom Jerônimo, the two get married.

While Davidão and Ana refused to convert to Christianity, Simão (Paulo José) was an Anusin who fully embraced it years prior, having become a priest and acting as a leader of the Jesuit Order that comes to the colonies to convert the natives.

His position was in a complex middle ground: While he really believed in Christianity as the only path to salvation, he also called out those who, like Dom Jerônimo and the Inquisition, wanted to impose it trough violence, and frequented acted as a healer and confident of Dona Ana in the moments where she was enduring abuse.

Whereas Xica da Silva was more dark and dealt in black-and-gray morality, A Muralha had more heroic characters, who represented the views on the search for social progress among those who viewed religious and racial hierarchy as natural.

[will-o-the-witch]

The same tired “is x a closed practice/cultural appropriation” question but with a twist: is hermetic qabalah a closed practice? I’ve read a garden of pomegranates and don’t intend on crossing into applying it to Jewish texts/figures/other closed aspects or using the hermetic qabalah to analyze any Jewish text but I want to ask a Jewish witch since the person who gave me the pdf isn’t Jewish as far as I’m aware.

Like, would using the hermetic qabalah to analyze like, Zeus or Odin for example, be deeply offensive? As sensical as smashing a large square peg into a small circular hole?

Happy Hanukkah and thank you for answering this (should you decide to). I’d offer an image of a bunny if I knew how but alas, have this bunny emoji instead 🐰🐇

So not actually that twisty of a question lol. The problem is not what you analyze using the framework, it's using the framework itself, especially if you're using a bastardized/christianized version of Kabbalah. This article helps explain some of the differences between Kabbalah vs. Cabala vs. Qabalah.

Short answer though, using an occult misappropriation of Kabbalah to analyze Pagan figures and texts not only would be cultural appropriation, but also not even make sense within the framework of what Kabbalah is even supposed to be to begin with.

[sistercrone]

I play a game with myself sometimes. I look for connections between the stories of different cultures. This picture is a good starting place.

Ravens - In Norse Mythology you have Odin’s Ravens, Huginn and Muninn. Raven the Trickster appears in many Native American or First Nation stories. The Australian Aboriginal people have stories of a Trickster Crow or Raven. Ancient British tales say that the country will only thrive as long as there are Ravens in the Tower of London. Bran the Blessed’s name literally means Raven, from the Mabinogion. Ravens fed Elijah in the Christian Bible.

The Tree- Norse myths have Yggdrasil (no I can’t pronounce it). There is a tree of life in the Cabala and in Celtic tales. Keep looking, you will find more associations.

What symbols did I miss in this picture?

This is a teaching game. Now that you have the idea, apply it to learning Tarot.

by Emil Maxén

[dynamicmanifold]

A Kabbalistic Reading of Book of the New Sun

[This is a re-upload/edit of a post of mine from Cohost. RIP my beautiful footnotes, but I did my best]

Gene Wolfe's Urth of the New Sun contains several explicit references to the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah. The most obvious of which are probably two place names: the planet Yesod which somehow exist outside of Severian's universe, and said universe which is know as Briah. I think it’s worth unpacking those references a bit.

However, before I dive into what those terms mean, a quick note on Kabbalah.

A Quick Note on Kabbalah

Kabbalah is not one singular thing. Even setting aside derived traditions of Hermetic Qabalah and Christian Cabala[note 1], the Jewish mystical tradition has taken on many forms over the centuries. Kabbalah is in some cases a way of understanding the mysteries of creation, in others a practical guide to performing miraculous acts, and still others a philosophical framework. What unites these strains is a shared intellectual history and a common symbolic language. I’m mostly interested here in using these common symbols as a device for reading The Book of the New Sun, and I will pull in whatever traditions feel most applicable in the moment. This post isn't about "the truth" of Kabbalah (nor, for that matter, "the truth" of The Book of the New Sun), but rather about how we can understand The Book of the New Sun through Kabbalistic ideas and thought. Importantly, Kabbalah is a active part of many Jews religious life, especially for those in the Hasidic movement, and should be treated with appropriate respect.

If you’re interested in learning more about Kabbalah generally, I am primarily pulling from two text: Gershom Scholem’s Kabbalah and Daniel M. Horwitz’s A Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism Reader.

With that out of the way, let us discuss Yesod and it's place within the Sephirot.

The Sephirot and The New Sun

The Hebrew word sephirah (plural sephirot) translated into English is something akin to "an act of counting" or "enumeration". Sometimes in Kabbalistic literature sephirah is linked to sappir (sapphire, or other blue gem), which may bring to mind the Claw of the Conciliator. We will return to that connection in a moment.

There are ten Sephirot, whose canonical ordering is

Keter (Crown)

Chokhmah (Wisdom)

Binah (Intellegence)

Chesed (lovingkindness)

Gevurah (Strength)

Tiferet (Beauty)

Netzach (Lasting Endurance)

Hod (Majesty)

Yesod (Foundation)

Malkhut (Kingship)

The Sephirot are usually arranged diagrammatically as shown bellow.

The Sephirot on the right side are usually considered masculine, those on the left feminine, and those in the middle a combination/balance of both[note 2]. Yesod is also sometimes referred to as Tzedek (Justice), which is the etymological origin of Tzadkiel’s name. Tzadkiel, the Hierogammate who dispenses justice on Yesod and whose gender shifts over the course of Urth of the New Sun fits nicely within this framework.

We may also draw a connection between Malkhut and the Autarch Severian. Severian has within him both male and female persona, his Autarchship is of central importance to the series.

Now that our players are set, how are we to understand them within the Sephirotic system? One view holds that the Sephirot are vessels which hold and channel divine light (ohr ayn soph). This light takes on different hues in each sephirah, but is ultimately of the same substance, like light viewed through a stain glass window. Of interest to us is that Yesod channels this light downward to Malkhut. This can then be readily understood in Urth of the New Sun as Severian receiving the literal light of the New Sun after his trials on Yesod. The New Sun is describe as a white hole, the inverse of a black hole where matter—posited to come from some other, higher place—flows out of it. We will discuss this higher place in the next section, but we can read this process now as the outflow of light from Yesod to the New Sun/Severian/Malkhut. As alluded to above, the light Severian calls forth from the Claw can also be seen as part of this process.

We can now read Severian’s story as that of Kabbalistic tikkun olam (repairing the world). In mainstream Rabbinic Judaism tikkun olam would be understood as a mission in which we are changed with trying to make the material world a better place. However in Kabbalah it is a metaphysical restoration. The story goes that in the beginning God created ten vessels of light, which were fragile and shattered. The tikkun (repair) of tikkun olam is then the restoration of the Sephirot and their divine light to their rightful places. See here for a brief primer on the Kabbalistic creation myth.

In a very literal sense is it obvious that Severian is trying to restore his dying Urth, but we can also read it as him performing his Kabbalistic duty to restore divine light to its proper place. In Kabbalah, this is done via acting with proper kavanah (intention, directing one’s heart). Now, it may at first seem odd to suggest Severian, who by his own admission “backed into the throne”, but for most of The Book of the New Sun Severian isn’t even aware of this divine light, let alone the need for him to engage in tikkun olam. In fact, we can see Severian’s journey in the first four books as him coming to appreciate the immediacy of the divine. This is best expressed by a scene towards the end of The Citadel of the Autarch,

What struck me on the beach and it struck me indeed, so that I staggered as at a blow—was that if the Eternal Principle had rested in that curved thorn I had carried about my neck across so many leagues, and if it now rested in the new “thorn (perhaps the same thorn) I had only now put there, then it might rest in anything, and in fact probably did rest in everything, in every thorn on every bush, in every drop of water in the sea. The thorn was a sacred Claw because all thorns were sacred Claws; the sand in my boots was sacred sand because it came from a beach of sacred sand. The cenobites treasured up the relics of the sannyasins because the sannyasins had approached the Pancreator. But everything had approached and even touched the Pancreator, because everything had dropped from his hand. Everything was a relic. All the world was a relic. I drew off my boots, that had traveled with me so far, and threw them into the waves that I might not walk shod on holy ground.

The revelation Severian comes to is very similar to the Kabbalistic doctrine that sparks of divine light exist in everything[note 3]. It is only after this that Severian make act with the proper kavanah to restore these divine sparks to their rightful place and bring about the New Sun; and it is with such kavanah that he journeys to Yesod.

How did Severian reach the right kavanah? Though obtaining a state of devekut (adherence/clinging). In the meditative tradition of Kabbalistic, one attempts to obtain a mental state where the practitioner "clings" to God, breaking down the barrier between themself and the divine[note 4]. Pursuing devekut can be seen as a dangerous process if one is unprepared; one in particularly intense prayer can enter a state of hitlahavut (burning fervor) where the soul is consumed as if by a flame. This union with God is comparable with ego death, with the distance between the self and God reduced to nothing and one is overwhelmed with the awareness of God. Severian obtains this state while meditating on the Claw at the end of The Sword of the Lictor, in the chapter appropriately titled The Claw:

Whenever I looked at [the Claw], it seemed to erase thought. Not as wine and certain drugs do, by rendering the mind unfit for it, but by replacing it with a higher state for which I know no name. Again and again I felt myself enter this state, rising always higher until I feared I should never return to the mode of consciousness I call normality; and again and again I tore myself from it. Each time I emerged, I felt I had gained some inexpressible insight into immense realities. At last, after a long series of these bold advances and fearful retreats, I came to understand that I should never reach any real knowledge of the tiny thing I held, and with that thought (for it was a thought) came a third state, one of happy obedience to I knew not what, an obedience without reflection because there was no longer anything to reflect upon, and without the least tincture of rebellion. This state endured all that day and a large part of the next, by which time I was already deep into the hills.

This process of losing himself in the contemplation of the Claw[note 5] (which we above linked to the sephirot), Severian orients himself with proper kavanah to serve the divine in his quest of tikkun olam. We can view Severian's journey throughout the first four books as a series of moments furthering his devekut, which ultimately allows him to succeed where precious Autarchs have failed.

The Four Worlds and The New Sun

Now that we have discussed how Kabbalah relates to the story of The Book of the New Sun, we may move on to what people truly care about: fictional cosmology.

Briah is the name of Severian’s universe. It is also the 2nd highest of four worlds in Kabbalah. These worlds (olamot, the plural of olam) are thought of as steps in the chain in which God created the universe. In descending order they are

Atzilut (Emination)

Briah (Creation)

Yetzirah (Formation)

Assiah (Action)

Typically the mundane world is thought to be at the bottom of Assiah. In some traditions[note 6], these four worlds are conceived as stages the mystic reaches through meditation on the Divine.

The world of Yesod that Severian travels to is notably outside of Briah. Traditionally each world is said to contain its own copy of the sephirot, linked in a chain with the Malkhut of the higher world being the Keter of the lower world. When Severian is observing the passage of the ship from Briah to Yesod he notices a strange phenomenon (Urth XV)

Into the center of that disk we plunged, so that for a moment there was a ring of ebony set with ghostly stars all around our ship, the Diadem of Briah.

The capitalization leading us to think of this as an object and not merely a trick of the light, we can read this as passage through the Keter of Briah/Malkhut of Atzilut to the Yesod of Atzilut[note 7].

Additionally, the worlds come into play with the white hole mentioned in the previous section. The energy which flows out of this white hole of the New Sun is thought said to come from a higher place, presumably Atzilut—the universe Severian travels to on his quest to bring the New Sun. Severian's journey thus parallel's the Kabbalists meditative journey though the Four Worlds in an effort to bring down Divine Light to the mundane world.

As I write this I am realizing this bit is just listing facts at you, so let's run through several smaller connections to Kabbalah: In Kabbalah, the higher worlds are also thought to be the realms of the angels, and in Urth the planet of Yesod contains angelic beings. The cyclical nature of time Severian mentions in Citadel XXXIV, the "divine year" is similar to that discussed in the 13th/14th century Kabbalistic text Sefer HaTemunah which connects the sabbatical year[note 8] to a cycle of creation/desolation of the world. And finally the Brook Magregot which Tzadkiel tells Severian runs from Yesod to Briah, is named from the Hebrew word for "steps"/"stairway", possibly alluding to ascension between the worlds of Kabbalah.

With that out of the way we can now proceed, as we always should, to asking "so what?"

What Are We to Make of This?

It is at this point worth mentioning that Gene Wolfe is Rather Catholic. While I think the case is clear that Gene was drawing from Jewish Kabbalah for The Book of the New Sun it is unlikely he was doing so with Jewish meaning in mind. Gene also makes references to various other non-Christian mythologies and belief systems, though I am not nearly knowledgeable enough on them to comment on their use. Regardless, it seems that Gene wanted to bring together mystical ideas from different backgrounds and religions in his work.

One possible reason is that Gene was, following in a Christian tradition, attempting to evoke Jewish ideas in a search of the "original" Christianity[note 9]. By evoking Jewish and other non-Christian ideas Gene attempts to establish a universality for the ideas he expresses in his books—much in the same way a politician might invoke "Judaeo-Christian values" to paint their efforts to legislate Christian ethics as a pluralistic endeavor. One should be wary of such universalisms which take faiths on the margins and cherry-pick ideas from them to suit and support the beliefs of the universalist[note 10], often by eliding inconvenient ideological or theological differences.

However, I think Gene's Kabbalistic references suggest a genuine attempt to engage with Kabbalah, if not on Jewish terms, at least in earnest. And while Gene was no doubt writing with a foundation of Christian dogma we can still reconstruct Jewish meaning from his use of Kabbalistic words and imagery. Perhaps this is merely the fact that many different meanings can be constructed by joining together whatever scraps the author leaves in various ways, but I would like to believe that the coherence we can salvage reflects Gene trying to do some amount of justice to the ideas he was borrowing.

Regardless, my personal desire to read The Book of the New Sun with a Jewish point of view came from seeing the Jewish imaginary used in the series somewhat ignored. I am by no means a Wolfe expert, but when I searched for anyone mentioning the Jewish character of the words he used I found very little. It seems odd to me that Jewish language and ideas can be used so centrally in the series (especially in Urth of the New Sun) while being a footnote in discussions.

Also I had a Jewish education and I gotta do something with all this stuff.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I will be using the convention of using “Qabalah” and “Cabala” to distinguish non-Jewish mystical traditions which evoke the same language as Kabbalah but are fundamentally not Jewish. The relation between these non-Jewish traditions and Kabbalah is sometimes contentious. On the antisemitic/appropriative elements in Cabala/Qabalah see Ezra Rose’s FYMA. A full discussion is beyond the scope of this post.

Painting the central column of sephirot as a middle ground between masculine and feminine is not a exactly standard practice. It is also complicated by a persistent, explicitly sexual, Kabbalistic metaphor wherein Yesod is the phallus through which feminine Malkhut "receives" from masculine Tiferet in exactly the way you are imagining. Kabbalah as a whole is full of heteronormative sexual metaphor. This is one of those instances where I am bracketing off part of Kabbalah for the sake of this exercise[note 11].

For instance compare to this quote by Rabbi Tzvi Freeman of the Chabad-Lubavich movement: "The fire of the sun, the air we breathe, the roaring waves of the oceans and all that lives in them; When we perceive beauty, it is because we have found that window to the infinite . . .the Earth and the plants and animals that live upon it; even the human flesh, its vital soul and the angels above—everything we find in our world and in the worlds deeper within—all are no more than artifacts of the sparks that fell in the explosion of that primordial world. But the essence of the human being, the breath of G‑d within us, that is G‑d Himself, gathering, refashioning and piecing back together an impossible dream."

We can also note that Severian also obtains a similar state of mental closeness with Thecla. If we interpret Thecla's presence in Severian as like that of the Shekhinah (see note 11) then this too could be read as devekut.

Consider this passage from Arthur Green's These are the Words on hitlahavut: "[Hitlahavut] is a rare and precious moment that happens in the life of those who give themselves wholly to prayer. Usually it comes and goes almost in a flash. But no matter: The real impact of hitlahavut is in the memory of such moments. They are stored in the contemplative mind and become important steps on the road toward the much cooler but longer lasting goal of devekut, an attachment to God in which one may live and act."

See Artur Green's Ehyeh : A Kabbalah for Tomorrow

The world atarah, often translated as “diadem”, is used in Kabbalah to refer to Malkhut. This contrasts Malkhut as the lower crown to Keter’s upper crown while highlighting their similarities. Since atarah and keter are Hebrew words we should not be too hung up on the choice of translation. The scene makes sense with the Diadem being an allusion to Keter.

The biblical tradition of shmita (release) dictates that agricultural land is to be left fallow every seventh year. Sefer HaTemunah extends this idea to the entire universe. (though each cycle is longer than 7 years, obviously).

See this wonderful article by Sheila Spector: http://cejsh.icm.edu.pl/cejsh/element/bwmeta1.element.ojs-doi-10_34839_wpt_2018_26_1_33-40

I'm not talking about Universalists, as in those who follow the Christian theological doctrine that Salvation will, in the end, be universal and everyone Saved. Though I am sure someone else could talk about the relationship between the two.

However, even in the case above[note 2] we can still make the connection between the Autarch Severian and Malkhut (which is where we are going with this if you didn’t know already). Malkhut is also associated with the Shekhinah (dwelling/settling) of God. The Shekhinah is feminine, and denotes God’s presence settling in the physical world, such as in the burning bush or the Tabernacle. In this case we can draw the parallel with Thecla dwelling within Severian, and it is through her that Severian is able to access the higher Sephirot. This does then leave out the gender ambiguity for Tzadkiel, but that is of lesser concern.

[brother-hermes]

THE CHYMICAL WEDDING AT CANA

To understand the transformation of water into wine requires we take an in-depth look at the symbolism. The difficulty in doing so is tied into language and cultural shifts as the mystical elements of the mysteries moved from culture to culture. Let us approach the subject with an open mind and bring mystic union into the 21rst Century.

[alconvin]

There are 12 archangels, who were known to the greeks and romans as the 12 olympians

The four apocalyptic archangels are:

Michael who is Athena

Raphael who is Hera

Urael who is Hestia

Gabrael who is Hermes

[guarda-textos]

Coisas relacionadas à Cabalá

(*Depois que falar da Face Feminina de Deus* - É por isso, caro leitor, que reservamos a seção sobre o Mal apenas depois de expor a Verdade Cristã... - *argumento de Jung em "Resposta á Jó"*)?

Primeiro expor bem o que seriam as Águas, para depois, bem lá na frente, fazer um paralelo com Orígenes

Pesquisar por "Midrash Adam hair forehead eyes nose mouth ears Job" no Google books

"Via della Fede mostrata a'gli Ebrei" de Morosini

Pesquisar por "נפש רוח נשמה בינה תפארת יחידה מלכות רבה" no Google books

Pesquisar por "Anima נפש רוח נשמה" e adicionado á isso, "Spiritum", no Google books

Pesquisar por "חכמה בינה Trinitatis" no Google books

Procurar por Nephesh, Ruach e Neshamah no Pugio Fidei

"Zohar, the book of Splendor", Scholem

https://archive.org/details/zohar-the-book-of-splendor-gershom-scholem-1963/page/n4/mode/1up

Pesquisar por "Mater Dei", "Beata Mater", "Beata Virgine", "Deipara" junto à "Schechina (שכינה)" no Google books

Pesquisar por "Thirteen Middot Trinity" e por "shevirat hakelim צמצום" no Google books

"The cabala, its influence on Judaism and Christianity", de Bernhard Pick

https://archive.org/details/cabalaitsinfluen00pick/page/n6/mode/1up

Pesquisar "Zohar 212a" ou "Vayekhel 212a" + "Suffering Servant" no google books

"Kabbale lourianique"

https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbale_lourianique

"Chevirat haKelim"

https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevirat_haKelim

Pesquisar por Joseph Ibn Tabul

Pesquisar por Baader, Oetinger e "cristãos" (em especial no Jstor) no geral sobre o 'Zimzum"

"Goethe's Kabbalistic Cosmology"

https://www.jstor.org/stable/23981598

"The Role of Lurianic Kabbalah in the Early Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas"

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26942839

"Lurianic Kabbalah and Its Literary Form: Myth, Fiction, History"

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/pft.2009.29.3.362

"Review: Traces of Lurianic Kabbalah: Texts and their Histories"

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43298682

"Modern Times I: The Christian Kabbalah"

https://academic.oup.com/book/662/chapter-abstract/135354320?redirectedFrom=fulltext

"Christian Kabbalah", por Peter J Forshaw

https://www.academia.edu/40599158/Christian_Kabbalah

"Reintroducing the Myth of the Fallen Angels into Judaism"

https://www.deliriumsrealm.com/lurianic-kabbalah-demonology/

Pesquisar por "l'antechrist messie le zohar" s por "babylon harlot zohar"

"Schechina et Libellus de Litteris Hebraicis" por François Secret

"Torah and Wisdom, תורה וחכמה, Torah Ve-Hokhmah, Studies in Jewish philosophy, Kabbalah, and Halacha: essays in honor of Arthur Hyman"

https://archive.org/details/torahwisdomtorah0000unse

Filon sobre os Gigantes

https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/yonge/book9.html

"Golden doves with silver dots: semiotics and textuality in rabbinic tradition", José faur

https://archive.org/details/goldendoveswiths0000faur/page/n29/mode/1up?q=Logos+Dabar+Memra+zohar

https://www.hebrew4christians.com/Grammar/Unit_One/Aleph-Bet/Aleph/aleph.html

"Memra" na Enciclopédia Judaica

https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10618-memra

"The Holy Logos in the writings of Philo of Alexandria"

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/292250602_The_Holy_Logos_in_the_writings_of_Philo_of_Alexandria

Pesquisar sobre "Adam" e "Adam Kadmon" em "The origins and history of consciousness", de Erich Neumann (lembrando que há também um Volume II)

https://www.betemunah.org/seventy.html

Pesquisar sobre Clemente em Paul Vulliaud

Pesquisar sobre o textinho de Hila Ratzabi sobre gematria

http://www.kabbalah.info/eng/content/view/frame/2863?/eng/content/view/full/2863&main

"List of kabbalists"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jewish_Kabbalists

https://dailyzohar.com/daily-zohar-1173-e/

https://dailyzohar.com/glossary/atika-kadisha/

https://www.hebrewcatholic.net/eucharist-jewish-mystical-tradition-part-1/

Procurar pelo "Mevo Shearim" (

מבוא שערים) de Isaac Luria e pelo Sha'ar HaPesukim (שער הפסוקים)

‎https://archive.org/details/wayofkabbalah00bens/page/218/mode/1up

https://kabacademy.eu/pt/content/capitulo-8/

Sobre a literatura "Heikalot" (היכלות)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hekhalot_literature

Pesquisar pelo "Shnei Luchot HaBerit"

Pesquisar pelo "Sha'ar HaShoel" (

שער השואל) de Azriel de Gerona

https://pt.scribd.com/document/37315650/Bohu-e-Tohu-Vazio-e-sem-Forma

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Worlds

https://eyeofheaven.medium.com/the-soul-and-kabbalah-the-patriarchs-and-the-sefirot-in-the-zohar-d57ce5dc11d4

https://nirmenussi.com/tetragrammation-and-sefirot/

Texto do Pe. Henri François de Vence, em "Sainte Bible en latin et en françois", Volume 17

Pesquisar por "Scholem kings of Edom"

Pesquisar "כתר חכמה בינה Trinitatem"

"Traite de la Cabale" de Jean Thenaud

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b55008904n/f2.item.zoom

https://www.manhigut-toranit.org/everyday-mitzvot/the-nature-of-the-shin-dalet-and-yud-in-tefillin/

https://bibliot3ca.com/a-cabala-crista/

[alephskoteinos]

You should see the Greek Magical Papyri before that. For that matter just see how Jake Stratton Kent traces practices and spell within the PGM within later grimoires that existed within the Christian era. From that standpoint, you could easily regress that to "Christians didn't have magic without syncretic pagans". The fact that the books at whatever occult book section (if that) you find contain Christian material doesn't actually speak to the premise that magic as we know it is fundamentally based in Christianity as much as the dominant current of "spirituality" is actually rebrandings of Christian mysticism, forms of which have been reiterated and rebranded to the point that they give the appearance of being totally distinct from things like Christian Theosophy or Christian Cabala.

For what it's worth, it's no accident that everything seems like Christianity, given that Christianity was and kind of still is the hegemonic religion and Christians have systematically appropriated Jewish magic and mysticism, parts of the Islamicate sciences, and the remnants of much older magical practice whose past must have seemed horrifically distant to the point of being almost gone even in their time.

Hate to be the bearer of bad news for some of you, but magic as you know it would not exist without Christianity, Islam, or Judaism.

Practicioners from these three faiths have contributed more than you'll ever know to magic thought and theory- to the point where you've probably picked up a "Witchcraft" Book and haven't even realized that a majority of the information inside is sourced from, if not taken verbatim, from their work.

Like, I'm not kidding.

These mystics and their work were foundational.

[penhive]

Assorted

Godtuition

Godtuition comes from God and Intuition. Let me use an example: how it happens: every time when my money gets low, I am able to get money from unexpected sources. Another family friend of mine had a terrible car accident in which he and his wife had a narrow escape. I and my wife went to visit them in their home. To our surprise, there was a Pastor and his wife there praying. When I asked him whether he came because the friend had told him, he replied that God spoke to him to come and visit their house. Later when the pastor’s wife started praying, she started praying for us and to our surprise she started praying for our business, a school to improve and the surprising thing is that: she and the Pastor did not know us. So I believe God works through people, situations and experiences to bless and help us and that I call as Godtuition.

Dasein and Apologetics

Dasein is a German word introduced into Philosophy by Heidegger. Dasein literally means being there and in my words, Dasein is the presence of being. Let me use Dasein from the view point of Christian Apologetics. Christ the messiah came to earth as the presence of meaning, and took himself on the cross as presence to bear humanity’s sin and resurrected for our sake as the celebration of presence to celebrate life on this earth and eternity. Using Heidegger’s Dasien I say that Christ is the being presence of meaning for the celebration of life on this earth.

Beatnik and Christian Philosophy

Beatnik and counter culture are a prominent terms that was popularly prevalent in the 1970’s. Beatniks like Allen Ginsberg the poet became psychically involved with Eastern Religions, libidinal freedom (Ginsberg was Gay), use of drugs and so on. Unlike the Beatniks of the 70’s I am a Christian Beatnik and I celebrate life’s meaning to fullest of my will. As a Beatnik, I withdraw from Social Media and live a Christian life as a Bohemian. I free myself from the Nihilism of the Devil and I saturate my life with invocations to God for living an optimistic and useful life. As a Beatnik I celebrate the presence of meaning and declare that the choices that I make are God given, and God centered and that make my choices a privilege.

Dreams

I had two dreams recently and they were a car and friends. These dreams could suggest that I am travelling and my life goals are taking a new turn.

Einsoph and the Sephiroth and Apologetics

Einsof and the Sephiroth come from Jewish Cabala and Einsof means infinite and Sephiroth are the emanations of the infinite. These two terms became popular in literature and fiction after Umberto Eco published his novel Foucault’s Pendulum. For me Einsoph is God Jehovah Jesus and the Sephiroth are his divine attributes and they are: love, peace, grace, wisdom, kindness, tolerance, forgiveness, providence, and care.

The Scarecrow

I had a chance to see a scarecrow while I was traveling. It was hanging on a trunk with a pot was face and hay as the body, and it was also covered with a shirt and a trouser. Birds were peeing and shitting on him. The scarecrow was put on newly constructed houses as an omen to ward off the evil eye.

Mannequin

Recently I saw a mannequin being dressed. It was a she. I could see the outline of her body. She has well rounded breasts, wavy hips and sumptuous pubis. I am wondering if a mannequin in real life would submit to me.

[rhianna]

Long Legacy of Wisdom

The Magic of the Middle Ages

See:   https://rhianna.tumblr.com/search/The+Magic+of+the+Middle+Ages  

“Even the theologians speak of the pristine wisdom,—the theologians with whom we, who practice the occult science, agree far more than the simple and suspicious among them think. What remained, in the time of Noah, of pristine wisdom was saved with him in the ark. His first-born obtained as his portion the fairest wisdom. Prophecy, the Cabala, and the Gospel belong to the sons of Shem, the Jews. But even Ham and Japhet were not left destitute. It was the priest of the sons of Ham that guarded the secrets of Isis,—secrets before which even[Pg 115] we Christians must bow in the dust; for the Old Testament does not hesitate to exalt the wisdom of the Egyptians and recognize Moses as a pupil from their school. Hermes Trismegistus was an Egyptian, and we magicians who know that he transmuted whatever he chose into gold and precious stones, are not astonished when the apostle Paul speaks of the treasures of Egypt, or at what travellers relate of its pyramids and other giant works, or when Pliny estimates the number of its cities at twenty thousand, or when Marcellinus is amazed at the immense treasures which Cambyses carried away from it, for all this was a creation of the art of Hermes Trismegistus.[30] Even the portion of the children of Japhet was not insignificant. It was divided between the treasury of Zoroaster and that of the Eleusinian mysteries. Some coins of this treasure fell into the[Pg 116] hands of Plato and Aristotle and have from them come into the possession of Porphyrius, Jamblichus, and the theosophists and scholastics. It is this diffused illumination—that of the Bible (its inner, secret meaning) the Cabala and fragments of Egyptian, Persian and Grecian wisdom—which are collected and united in the magic of learning. These are the ancestors of my science. Has it not a pedigree more noble than that of any royal family?