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Naming QBLs

To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,alt.consciousness.mysticism,talk.religion.misc
From: hara 
Subject: Naming QBLs (was Hermetic...)
Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2001 06:24:49 GMT

50011213 VI! om

shalom alechem, my kin.

Gnomedplume@aol.com (Gnome d Plume):
> I called it "The Pagan Kabbalah" and always prefaced it,
> in our context with the prefix "Hermetic." 

interesting.

sri catyananda :
>>Your claim of the abandonment of kabbalah in the Jewish community is
>>unusual and so far unsupported. The Jewish community is not monolithic.
>>Assimilated Jews in Germany and England may not have studied kabbalah
>>much during the era of their greatest attempts to assimilate and
>>disappear into European rationalist-scientific culture, but it was not
>>abandoned by all Jews. And, regardless of popularity trends, the
>>kabbalah remains a Jewish mystical tradition, not up for grabs by those
>>who would remove the name of the god it was designed to magnify, thoise
>>who would substitute for Herbrew an alphabet it was never designed to
>>work with, and those who would aim toward spiritual goals (such as your
>>own avowed "anti-monotheism") which patently subvert its original
>>purposes. 

> Of the Jewish kabbalah, not the Heremetic kabbalah. My innovations are 
> a direct extension of Hermetic philosophy. 

that's straight-forward enough.

>> I am saying that what you teach is no longer the kabbalah. 
>
> What I teach is not the Jewish kabbalah and never was.

very clear.

>> I believe that what you teach is a neo=pagan emmanation-system of great
>> interest to the magical community at large. I beleive you got your start
>> in it by studying the Christian and hermetic riffs on the Jewoish
>> kabbalah, and that you -- and they -- are not teaching the kabbalah, but
>> some new species of spiritual system, which deserves a new name all its
>> own. 
>
> Yes, and some years ago we began calling it "The Hermetic
> Qabalah."  It could  be that your main complaint might  be mollified
> if I did not use the spelling "kabbalah". It does seem to be the
> preferred rabbinical English spelling of the word these days.  Let's
> see if this helps: from now on I'll use the spelling that Dion Fortune
> (a Pagan and a Woman!) used: Hermetic Qabalah, will that help? 
> Actually it might be a good idea. 

I began using this convention as early as 1995, coming up with this
system in reflection of what I was seeing around me:

		Kabbalah -- Jewish mysticism associated with Tree of Life, gematria, etc.
		Cabala   -- Christian imitation of same
		Qabalah  -- Hermetic variation on same
	and     QBL      -- The Universal projection of them all

later I added   Qaballa  -- Thelemic variation on Hermetic

mostly in reflection of jake stratton-kent and his Qaballa FAQ. ;>

check out some of the files in:

	http://www.luckymojo.com/kabbalah/
like
	http://www.luckymojo.com/kabbalah/9501.qabala-.tn   
	http://www.luckymojo.com/kabbalah/9502.qabalah.tn

where you'll see what I mean. one of the first few heated arguments I got
into in usenet with sri catyananda was over this precise topic (there was
a Jewish mystic arguing for term-control and I was taking the position
above, saying it was expedient and that each could be fleshed out as to
what they contained). please feel free to use the above at your leisure.

> "Kabbalah" does look and sound more "Jewish" and both Scholem and 
> Kaplan used it. Now if I do change the spelling, can't we just get along?

I'm not NOT getting along. :> I like both sides of this argument and I
hope to inspire a strong defense of each. your assertions were a bit
extreme for me, and I don't have enough references to offer a realistic
defense of Hermetic qabalah for long, but you didn't mention a number
of weird and wonderful cabalists like Mirandola, Eisen or Bertiaux. :>

so far all I've said has to do with how you'll be perceived, not some
cosmic reality. that and a defense of Scholem's reputation, which should
not be smeared by Christians, Hermetics, or Thelemites just because we
might not agree about Levi, Papus, or Crowley (nobody has yet posted what
they think Crowley's great contribution to the QBL might be -- not even
Bill Heidrick!).

peace be with you, Poke!

hara
 nagasiva@luckymojo.com

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