Path: typhoon.sonic.net!not-for-mail Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.consciousness.mysticism,alt.magick,talk.religion.misc,alt.pagan Followup-To: alt.magick.tyagi,talk.religion.misc,alt.pagan Subject: Kabbalah Authority, Understanding (was Beg...) References: <3CB259BF.7D4@luckymojo.com> <3cb271cb.18032771@trialnews.peoplepc.com> From: hara Reply-To: spam@yronwode.com User-Agent: nn/6.6.0 Lines: 129 Message-ID: <2nUs8.15021$44.95008@typhoon.sonic.net> Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 10:21:50 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 208.201.242.18 X-Complaints-To: abuse@sonic.net X-Trace: typhoon.sonic.net 1018434110 208.201.242.18 (Wed, 10 Apr 2002 03:21:50 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 03:21:50 PDT Xref: typhoon.sonic.net alt.magick.tyagi:32254 alt.consciousness.mysticism:55425 alt.magick:296993 talk.religion.misc:377022 alt.pagan:298172 50020410 VI 2nd Day of the Signing of Crowley's Rag shalom alechem, my kin. sri catyananda : >> What does it gain the non-Jew to claim the Kabbalah is not Jewish? attention. >> I submit that the prize is the Kabbalah itself. extended, an interesting argument, though I doubt you intended it (that the Kabbalah is attention :>). I'd be willing to entertain its logic with respect to the subject of its cultural transmission. >> I submit that these claimants first seek to diminish, obviate, >> or obliterate the Jewishness of the Kabbalah and then they >> seeks to claim the Kabbalah for their own. this doesn't seem very different from many other religious rivalries I've been party to in my life as an inhabitant in a largely Christian culture whose extensive and conversion-oriented religious values found adoption and corruption from within as promising as opposition and corruption from without. i.e. I've known many Wiccans, Satanists, alchemists, sorcerers, etc., who identified with the Path and sought somehow to refine, define, AND exemplify it, even to the detriment and displacement of those who brought it to their door. it is quite an interesting phenomenon. >> We will let you play with the Kabbalah, but you cannot claim that it >> grew out of your culture. Sorry. Here, turn it over and look on the >> bottom. There -- right under Malkuth. See? It has a stamp right on it in >> Herbew, and the stamp says "The Kabbalah (TM) is a product of Jewish >> Culture." LOL! now if the Jewish Culture (JC!) has a trademark on *attention* (or even on transmission) I'll be mightily impressed! :> Gnomedplume@aol.com (Gnome d Plume): > ...BhP in this case is giving the impression that he/she is an > "expert" on Jewish Kabbalah arguing for the position, perhaps. > -- and at the same time declaring traditional aspects of it, > and the opinions of its most revered authorities, to be wrong! so? > If I were Jewish I would be offended by the implied assertion > that there is no morality in Jewish Kabbalah. mountains out of molehills. separate yourself from whether it is a position one "should" hold and consider whether or not it has any truth in it. if it has none, why are there sources indicating it? who are these? if I bring forth squabbling religious to show you that mystics and religious are not a unified theoretical body, will this make any singular position believable? > BhP seems to be hung up on a rehabilitation of the evil klippoth > and the angel of death Samael, The Serpent of Eden and the > male consort of Lilith who was also the first wife of Adam. I've known a few with similar motivations. I cannot say that I am myself immune from such motivations: socially 're-integrating' that which has been 'cast out', demonized, and repressed. but it is one thing to reclaim the misunderstood, quite another to try to defend evil. the paradigms are pockmarked by constant warfare. > There is an extreme form of "Jewish Paganism" (in spite of the > contradiction in terms) no contradiction to some whom I've met. > that appeals to some radical feminists in which Lilith is > exalted. Neopaganism contains this, yes. I find it appealing and interesting, especially where the scholarship doesn't get sacrificed to support the storytelling. > Astarte-Anath is a much better choice IMO, (along this line I > suggest *The Hebrew Goddess* by Raphael Patai) but then we both know > a nice guy who loves Kali, so perhaps Lilith might also be an option > for Pagans of Jewish origin? there are two levels of truth that I leaven (s/b 'learn', but I liked it that way too :>) from Kali: transcendental and temporal. ordinary truth extends to a support of dualism, human opposition to evil, and the perspective of the living human being. transcendental truth fails but tries to extend beyond language, to a support of non-dualism, the lack of morality at some absolute level, especially at the station or condition of the divine. it is my impression, therefore, that each has hir own condition and capacity to engage these spiritual routes. what seems a 'better' choice from one person's perspective may be 'old', 'inferior' or even 'dangerous' to another. > Anything can be justified by some twist of philosophy, and both > Kabbalah and Qabalah have long and varied histories with lots > of ideas; many of them contradictory. not surprising. > But one would hope that BhP could manage to present [their] > admittedly unique and admittedly post-traditional version of > whichever QBL [they are] modifying without offending Jewish > and Hermetic magicians in the process. somehow I find this difficult to believe. there are simply too many people interested in being offended on the topic to avoid them, so it takes some effort (one I'm not inclined to make :>). peace be with you, hara So we'll go to the top of the toppest blue space, The Official Katroo Birthday Sounding-Off Place! Come on! Open your mouth and sound off at the sky! Shout loud at the top of your voice, 'I AM I! ME! I am I! And I may not know why But I know that I like it. _Three cheers_! I AM I!'" Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) _The Big Birthday Book_ END