Path: typhoon.sonic.net!feed.news.sonic.net!news-out.nuthinbutnews.com!feed-ev1!propagator-sterling!news-in.nuthinbutnews.com!nntp-relay.ihug.net!ihug.co.nz!news-hog.berkeley.edu!ucberkeley!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: axialthrust@yahoo.com (BhP) Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick Subject: Re: Good QBL Behaviour (was Beg. Enoch) Date: 8 Apr 2002 12:09:49 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Lines: 33 Message-ID: <361f09a8.0204081109.5612be0f@posting.google.com> References: <361f09a8.0204051502.3224145c@posting.google.com> <3cae3f17.24910674@trialnews.peoplepc.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 146.129.24.233 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1018292989 10100 127.0.0.1 (8 Apr 2002 19:09:49 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 8 Apr 2002 19:09:49 GMT Xref: typhoon.sonic.net alt.magick.tyagi:32243 alt.magick:296842 hara wrote > axialthrust@yahoo.com (BhP) wrote: > > > > Any good teacher (and any good qabalist *or* kabbalist) should be > > able to carry on an intelligent debate and deal with criticism, > > what is it about being a good kabbalist that predisposes them to this? You partially answered your question below: > > and should be able to recognize the limits of his or her knowledge. > > recognition and admitting of it are different, of course. most of those > who dwell in or try to swim in knowledge wind up becoming victims of it > sooner or later I notice, deterioratin their discipline into dogma. Debate and critical thinking are necessary to avoid swimming in the abyss. Kabbalah is a system of inquiry, to study it effectively one's ideas must be challenged. Don't ask me to prove this, or where I read this, because it's something I just picked up based on my studies and personal experience. Anyone who's studied Jewish Kabbalah even just a little bit knows that many lessons are taught by relating an old story about three or four or so rabbis who were having an argument, this is what each one said, and who do you think was 'right'? So the kabbalist learns by studying a variety of opinions, and becomes part of a culture where challenge and intelligent debate are part of the learning process. And we understand that the challenges and criticism are not personal attacks, they are attempts to refine one's intellectual processes, to remove veils. Maybe this culture disappeared in the transmission of Hermetic Qabala and only is part of Jewish studies, I really don't know.