Kabbalah, the specific form of Jewish mysticism that grew up in Languedoc, southern France, in the 12th century as opposed to the Christinied cabala. Qabalah in this spelling relates directly to the magical root letters of Q-B-L, the "received tradition" of Israel, revealed by God to select saints and prophets Babylonia.
Indirectly, Qabalah or Kabbalah links with the word of Qiblah in Aramaic meaning "amulet." According to A.E. Waite, the third of the four main branches of Kabbalah is Theurgy and the talismanic use of Divine Names. It was thought that words held power particuarly the "Word of God"
Letters were potencies, energies, entitiles with a life of thier own. In Qabalah, the 22 Hebrew letters were used in invocations to angelic beings and meditations. This sort of divine preformance with letters was turned into an art. "Ars Combinandi" and dates back to the Sepher Yetzirah (the Book of Creation)
Aziel of Gerona, the 13th centure Kabbalist, descirbes the langauge mysticism of the Gabalah as having five processes which lead to Gnosis, or preceptiuon of God.
1. Tiqqun: the letters are placed in harmony
2. Ma'amar: the letters are assembled into words
3. Sernuf: the letters are permutated
4. Mikhlal: the letters are collected together in all combinations
5. Heshbon: the letters are calculated according to thier numerical value
The Dictionary of Alchemy
Diana Fernando
Thu Jul 19, 2007 4:21 pm