New Worlds of Body, Mind & Spirit Since 1901
Is gematria a valid and useful technique for investigating anything, or is it nothing but mental exercise? If it is useful, can it apply to anything other than Hebrew scripture? Is it even taking things too far to apply it to the Aramaic of the Zohar? How about non-Hebraic names, such as Bill Jones or Aleister Crowley? How seriously should you take correspondences that you happen upon in your reading and investigations? To add fuel to the fires of this controversy, let us examine the name Lilith. In Jewish folklore, Lilith is a night-demon and a queen of demons. She was the first wife of Adam, before Eve was created, but she refused to submit to her husband. Consequently, she became a ...
I was always a voracious reader. Throughout most of my childhood, the local library had a limit on the number of books you could check out at any one time, and you had to return them within two weeks. I would always check out the limit and always have them read within three to four days. One of my happiest moments was when the library gave me special permission to check out more books than they normally allowed. On one of these occasions I read a book of short stories and in it was the tale of a group of men. These men used something called the Qabala to create a monster called a golem out of mud to save themselves from the Nazis. Since that time the Qabala (regardless of its spelling: ...
Though I grew up in a modern household, my family belonged to the Orthodox branch of Judaism. We kept a kosher home, observed the major holidays, my sister and I went to Hebrew school—and yet, I never heard the word "Kabbalah." It was not until I became fascinated with the Tarot, and studied its esoteric history, that I even knew such a tradition existed. "Tradition" is certainly the right word, for that is what Kabbalah means, a mystical tradition passed down from teacher to student. Seemingly, in the 19th and early 20th centuries that oral passage had failed, become too magical for Jews who wished to embrace the modern world. But Kabbalah had not vanished, it had simply opened ...
One of the things I have commented upon in my writing is that for some practitioners, certain aspects of the Kabbalah and ceremonial magick are very "left-brained." These practices, which are a focus for some people, though logical and well thought out, lack passion. Indeed, I was there once. I was a member of a magickal group where you were required to choose a magickal name. I chose one rather quickly, and then went on to write a long paper on the meaning, value and Kabbalistic interpretations of the name. It was all very left-brained. But it doesn't have to be that way! In Modern Magick, I briefly discussed a mystical tradition that was a direct forerunner of the ...
