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To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.divination,alt.magick From: haraSubject: Gematria, Language, and Kabbalah (was Numerology question) Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 20:05:29 GMT 50010613 VI! om Hail Shaitan! hara: >> you know, I used to think this was Hebrewphilia, and to a certain extent >> it is, but more often I think I agree with sri catyananda in that it is >> an attempt (or the leftover of attempts) to co-opt Jewish culture for >> the purposes of Christian competition in religion and mysticism. > is it possible for a jew to co-opt jewish culture? I was talking with my (Jewish) wife about this and she and I agreed that it depends on what you mean by the question, but that, yes it is certainly possible. someone Jewish by genetics or birth, for example, but unfamiliar with the religious or even general Jewish culture could co-opt Jewish culture to their own ends or participate in such a co-option by Christians or others. someone Jewish in religion could co-opt Kabbala toward their own purposes if they had no relationship to the tradition of kabbalism inherent to Judaism and either created their own "Khabbala" or began a participation in some alternative (Cabala, Qabala(h), Qaballa, etc.). consider Israel Regardie. one could make the case that this was what he was doing (participating in the co-option of Kabbala toward Hermetic goals (Golden Dawn, later Crowleyism), and yet he was Jewish by name and genetics/culture as far as I know. Regardie edited out Crowley's text in "777" which was anti-Jewish and offensive to him. >>> or associate numbers with english letters, >>> the entire process is arbitrary. >> >> nothing arbitrary about the sequence A-Z or 1-26; neither is there >> anything arbitrary about A-I/J-R/S-Z and 1-9/10-90/100-800, which >> system is used in Hebrew (and apparently Greek) gematria. > arbitrary in that with english the letter and number symbols are > different, you can correspond them however you'd like, and with > hebrew the letters and numbers are the same symbol. the > letter/number association is built into the system. while I agree that the letters were and are used as numbers, there is, as far as I know, no absolute way to identify letter-number correspondences except through traditional selection. for example, Stan Tenan (an interesting Jewish fellow whose expostulations on Hebrew letters, their origins, and the signicance of Torah text and that of Kabbalists are very intriguing) wanted to assign numbers to the letters, he chose to use the modern 27 letter alphabet (5 final letters) and pair them with a TRINARY system beginning with zero because of his interest in spatial coordinates. he regards the initial aleph not as a formal letter at all, but as a composite of Beth and Tzadde. there are alternatives. combine with this the fact that the simultaneous usage of letters and numbers occurs in other cultures (e.g. the Greek, which also used gematria, about which we are speaking and perhaps the precursors to this type of Jewish numerolinguistic) and you start having to select not only a system of assignment but also a LANGUAGE. why select Hebrew rather than Greek, for example? why select either rather than an older one that used gematria, or one that did not? > ...personally I think the difference is significant. why? after all, you have the ADDED complication, where Hebrew is concerned, with the assignment of *meanings to the letters themselves*. that is, UNLIKE ENGLISH (for the most part), each of the letter names is also a word with a meaning. this is arguably *complicating* to the numerolinguistic, and significant toward selecting something else. of course these types of selections are individual and one might just as easily consider this facet of the Hebrew alphabet to be an *advantage*. :> >> confirmation of my previous hypothesis regarding Jewish competition. >> if you really wanna go BACK, go to Sanskrit or something. > why? why not go back to my own roots, my man? are only orthodox > jews worthy of jewish qabala? spelling and reference gave me clues to the faction from which you appeared to be hailing (Hermetic). I provided a means of going back along LINGUISTIC lines, because some of the oldest extant Indo-European writings are to be found today in Sanskrit and there are ways of making the leap with what is today known about that language. now you are asking about going back along GENETIC (or at least CULTURAL) lines. if you are Jewish, then that is a quite legitimate way of attempting to return to 'earlier' systems so as to negotiate your gematria. at that point it becomes important to consider which version of Hebrew you are going to use, how to translate so that your result is convincing, etc. not only this, there is an entire social edifice in place to assist you in actual KABBALA, rather than merely gematria, though I gather you have to be male, over a certain age (40?), and maybe a practicing Jew in order to enter into instruction. perhaps you are already such an individual, I cannot know this. I have been informed by sources that I trust that Orthodox Jews are as worthy of practicing Kabbala as any others. :> the question becomes why are you suggesting Robert Wang, if your background and interests are not predominantly Hermetic (as the Golden Dawn with which Wang appears to be primarily associated). don't get me wrong, I like Wang's expression very much, but I don't know him to be reliable as far as Jewish Kabbalah is concerned. try Scholem, Halevi, or even source documents like Luria, or better, Zohar, and commentaries by Rabbis on same. gematria is one thing, and Kabbalah appears to be much more than this. see this was really a discussion about NUMEROLOGY, as I under- stand it, and while Qabalah (Hermetic) may be focussed on gematria (half the time identifying itself as such), the original in Judaism is far more extensive than this, which was my primary point in responding to you previously. > besides, sanskrit has no meaning to me other than what > I've learned from the western co-opting of that culture, > so how is it any better? while I appreciate your point, I think that there is less of a history of twisting and re-interpretation of ideas expressed in Sanskrit (i.e. Vedic, Buddhist) for the purpose of internecine contention (Christian and Hermetic attempts to turn Jewish culture, ideas, and people toward Christianity is very longstanding), while the same probably started in any seriousness with regard to Sanskrit and ancient Indian culture with Theosophy and its like -- corrections encouraged here. > I appreciate you reacting against glomming on to some system > that's been bastardized by western magicians, but I am an > arabic jew, qabala has some meaning to me. what does "arabic jew" mean? since you're focussing on your cultural or genetic background, could you elaborate some? > and, I think it should be open to all who have the desire > and commitment to study it. take that up with Kabbalists. ;> > I agree with arguments that new systems that people create > on their own can be much more powerful than some watered > down old system with no personal meaning, but saying > go to sanskrit rather than hebrew doesn't make any sense to me. I hope you see I was merely responding regarding linguistics, not presuming anything about your cultural heritage or genetic background. ;> nagasiva
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