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Post by Raj Don Yasser on May 21, 2017 23:46:03 GMT
It's been around twenty years since studying Kabbalah and I'm hoping for some recommendations. I recently read my old copy of Fortunes Mystical Qabalah and read sections of Crowley's 777 and not sure what to read next. After starting to read Grant's Nightside of Eden it became clear I needed to read a few basic books on the tree of life.
What would you consider "required reading" on Kaballah? Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
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Post by Nalyd Khezr Bey on May 22, 2017 0:32:49 GMT
Based on what you're already looking at I would guess you're looking for books that lean more towards the Hermetic Qabalah. Here are a few you might look into:
A Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism by Gareth Knight
The Qabalistic Tarot: A Textbook of Mystical Philosophy by Robert Wang
Qabalah: A Magical Primer by John Bonner
The Elements of Qabalah by Will Parfitt - a descent brief intro to the basics.
For a kind of crossover to the more traditional Kabbalah and how the Hermetic Qabalah evolved out of it you must check out Essential Papers on Kabbalah edited by Lawrence Fine (not Larry from the 3 Stooges... at least I don't think so). You may also appreciate The Early Kabbalah by Joseph Dan and Moshe Idel as it contains the text of one of the only "traditional" sources I know of that deals with the Qliphoth titled "A Treatise on the Left Emanation".
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Post by Raj Don Yasser on May 22, 2017 21:10:41 GMT
I was considering the Gareth Knight and John Bonner titles on amazon, thanks for the recommendations. I vividly recall reading Will Parfitt's book The New Living Qabalah in '98 and wish I still had my old copy. Likely the first book I ever read on the subject was William Grey's The Ladder of Lights which served me well as a concise introduction.
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Post by Manuel Herrera on May 25, 2017 21:32:58 GMT
Dear Raj Don Yasser,
I have not read it yet (I actually purchased it a few weeks ago through Book Depository) but I received a lot of good feedback on The Chicken Qabalah of Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford by Lon Milo Duquette.
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Post by sandow on May 25, 2017 22:05:46 GMT
Hello, I think Colin Low's website (http://www.digital-brilliance.com/index.php) is a great resource on this topic, especially his "notes on kabbalah" (http://www.digital-brilliance.com/contributed/nok/index.php). He also wrote an excellent book, "The Hermetic Kabbalah".
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Post by stephen on May 31, 2017 13:06:25 GMT
Oh dear, (to put it politely), I never expected to see Lon Milo Duquette's 'The Chicken Qabalah' getting a mention here on the Kenneth Grant Forums. Its OK, I guess, if you like your received tradition dripping with schmaltz, (original Yiddish sense intended). Ho, hum.
I would recommend Nalyd's suggestion of Qabalah: A Magical Primer by John Bonner. While it comes from a Thelemic perspective, it includes a good survey of the original Jewish sources and the subsequent developments within the Western Esoteric Tradition.
There are a number of Jewish Qabbalistic texts that deal with the 'Left Emanation' or Sitra Achra, 'Other Side', but they are not easily come by and if published, tend to be scattered in different anthologies. I believe that I did manage to download a dodgy pdf of "A Treatise on the Left Emanation" from the web some time ago. Incidentally, Aramaic STRA AChRA has a gematria of 480 = LILITh, you may not be entirely surprised but delighted to learn. Kenneth Grant tended to rely rather too heavily on Waite's The Holy Kabbalah for such information, although there is some significant material in 777.
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Post by Nalyd Khezr Bey on Jun 2, 2017 19:25:05 GMT
Yeah, I didn't want to be the one to mention Duquette's book for my own personal reasons. But in his defense Chicken Qabalah may be the best contribution he has made to occult literature... at least what may be considered actually useful. However, everything in his book can be found in the books I listed above without Lon's attempts at dumbing the subject down with his brand of humor.
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Post by Manuel Herrera on Jun 2, 2017 21:42:54 GMT
Dear lord!
As I mentioned before I have not read the book yet (still waiting for it to arrive). I purchased it as some members I know of the Ordo Templi Orientis recommended it to me.
I will be consulting your suggestions too!
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Post by Gregory Peters on Jun 3, 2017 17:19:49 GMT
There is a correspondence course from the Builders of the Adytum (B.O.T.A) which is actually a very good exploration of Qabalah from a "western hermetic" perspective. I am not much of a Paul Foster Case fan (a little too dry for me), but will not deny that he knew his qabalah and the courses are well thought out and detailed
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Post by Raj Don Yasser on Jun 7, 2017 19:36:56 GMT
I'm greatly enjoying Bonner's book, thanks for the recommendation.
As for Duquette's The Chicken Qabalah, I read it back in '97 and didn't care for his presentation, but that speaks more to my tastes than to Duquette's writing style. That being said, around '95 or '96 I read his book The Magick of Thelema and found it VERY helpful at that stage in my development.
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Post by stephen on Jun 8, 2017 14:17:19 GMT
Yes, credit where it is due, The Magick of Thelema is an excellent book and I do have a copy.
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Post by triveni93 on Jun 18, 2017 19:15:29 GMT
I started out with Dion Fortune's Mystical Qabalah, William Gray's Ladder of Lights (both of which you already mentioned) and Israel Regardie's Garden of Pomegranates. The Sword and the Serpent by Denning and Phillips (I think that's the title) is also good. For deeper, longer term learning, I second Gregory's recommendation to try the correspondences courses offered by BOTA.
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cagliostro
New Member
Sacred seer is birth,sense and intelligence. Everything is cypher
Posts: 28
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Post by cagliostro on Nov 20, 2017 20:46:16 GMT
i spent a year in a monastery retreat .i was allowed one book i took kabbalah unveiled ,i learnt so much it was silly.like kenneth grant you can gain so much from the rereadings...its the worlds you enter ..the changes..all from a dot
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cagliostro
New Member
Sacred seer is birth,sense and intelligence. Everything is cypher
Posts: 28
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Post by cagliostro on Nov 20, 2017 20:52:52 GMT
read the zohar ..its the source ..its a confusing wonderful puzzle..but its away to your own kaballah..no dogma..well modern dogma
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Post by serephina on Nov 20, 2017 22:30:16 GMT
The Kalas as wisdom are like the rivers of Eden fourfold. The Kabballah is the one and only upheaval for humanity return to the Kabbalistic Adam and Eve.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 21, 2017 1:15:02 GMT
The best Kabbalah books I have found are the Tarot, and the Torah (Original Hebrew Masoretic, translations are worthless). The Tarot is a book that can 'write itself', with the proper geometry, math, and pasting of the sheets. But it also unlocks the Torah, thanks to the wormhole Aiwass gave to Crowley on the reformation of the attributions of the Not Star. I have found some extraordinary things with it, not using any techniques I've come across elsewhere, except Keys provided by Grant, and he does not provide the method of generation. 777+718=1495.
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