< A Few Facts Concerning the Kabbalah (continued from page 11-77) >
for what ultimately became the Masoretic or pointed Hebrew text.
In the wake of the spiritualising came the occult Kabbalists.
These also were in the hands of spiritual and supernatural guides, but they differed from the spiritualising Kabbalists in this, that they sought to acquire and use supernatural powers.
Like the spiritualising the occult Kabbalists also sought to gain authority for their doctrine 7 grafting it on to the ancient Kabbalah through the Hebrew S.S.; but they soon found they could only do this by transmuting the Hebrew text.
To do this they devised special ways, the use of which required a special training.
Hence the persons trained to the use of these ways came to be called Kabbalists, and ho science which through these devices they imputed to the Hebrew S.S. the Kabbalah.
The ways these Kabbalists devised for imputing their doctrine to the ancient Kabbalah were ingenious, but with the exercise of all their skill, which was great and well directed for the purpose, they could not disguise their true intent—which was to change the letter of the sacred Hebrew text in order to transmute its teaching: for
1. Through the numerical value of the alphabetic letters they substituted words of equivalent numerical value one for another.
2. They made each letter of a word the initial of an independent word; thus of the elements of a single word constructing a whole sentence.
3. They formed the initial and final letters respectively of the several successive words of a sentence into other separate words; thus out of one sentence constructing another.
4. They combined two or more words into a single word.
5. They divided one word into two or more.
6. They divided the consecutive letters of a sentence into a different series of words; thus converting it into a wholly different sentence.
7. They arranged the words of sentences held to contain a peculiarly recondite meaning, letter by letter in diagrams divided into squares, so that they might be read in lines either vertically, up or down, or horizontally, from the right or left; and sometimes even diagonally.
8. They placed the words of several sentences letter by letter over each other, and then formed a series of words of the letters standing one above another.
9. They changed the letters of words by way of anagram, and thus obtained new words constructed of wholly foreign elements; and for this purpose had fixed rules and anagrammatic alphabets.
Now all these methods of treating the Hebrew text of the S.S., with others that need not be noticed, are simply so many ways of altering that text by substituting another piecemeal for it—to make it seem to yield doctrines which otherwise have no connection therewith.
It thus appears—
1. That the primitive Kabbalah of the archaic text imbedded in the Hebrew S.S., which embodies the principles of the science of nature held by its framers, is the true Kabbalah—the Kabbalah whose presence in this way in those scriptures, causes them to be the basis of all Kabbalistic studies.
2. That the Spiritualised Kabbalah is an arbitrary interpretation of this original Kabbalah—an arbitrary interpretation fastened on to the archaic text thereof, in order by a spiritual impersonation of the same to identify itself with and so assume the authority of that which it personates.
3. That the occult Kabbalah transmutes that text, in order by a dissembled derivation therefrom to acquire a seeming though spurious association therewith; so that the spiritual and occult Kabbalah have assumed the title and fastened themselves on to the text of the primitive Kabbalah, in order to usurp the authority of the same.
The Kabbalah treated of in such works as those of which the readers of the Spiritualist have recently been favoured with a list, is a hybrid compound of the spiritualised and occult Kabbalah, and generally regarded as a Hebraicised form of neo-platonism; and is held by the best authorities not to date farther back than the twelfth century of the present era, though some, who think they see traces of it in the Talmud, would throw its origin back to the second century.
The great lessons which modern Spiritualism has enforced are that absolute certitude is unattainable in any branch of human knowledge; and that no authority should be given to any teaching which it does not derive from its own intrinsic merit.
9th April, 1881.
The kabbalah
Sir,—As a general opinion prevails that I am the author of the papers on the Kabbalah, signed M.D., I beg to state that I am not, nor have I any idea who is. I know very little about the Kabbalah, and I cannot say I always understand the papers signed M.D.
Editor's notes
- ↑ The kabbalah by unknown author, London Spiritualist, No. 453, April 29, 1881, p. 203
Sources
-
London Spiritualist, No. 453, April 29, 1881, p. 203