The spelling of the word ‘Qabalah’ is used to designate the Hermetic Qabalah. When spelled ‘Kabbalah’, this refers to the Jewish esoteric teachings based on the study of the Torah and other scriptures. ‘Cabala’ is a form of Christian mysticism influenced by Jewish esotericism during the Renaissance. Both the latter forms are to a large extent considered to be heretical by the orthodoxy.

The word Qabalah signifies the reception of a spiritual influence and, at the same time, the initiatic transmission itself. The Tree of Life provides a basis for ritual and meditation. It consists of a particular development of the traditional teachings. The form of the Tree of Life most widely used today is a diagram of ten discs or numbers (sephiroth) and twenty-two inter-connecting pathways. The philosophical and numerical basis of the Tree of Life is thought to owe more to Pythagoras than it does to Moses; however, scholars tend to see everything as derived from the Greeks but the Hebrew tradition is unique in many respects. Nonetheless, study of the Pythagorean ternary, quaternary and decad does much to provide a more solid basis for an intellectual understanding of the Qabalah.

The Golden Dawn made use of the correspondences to the letters given in the Book of Formation, but through systematisation tended to lose sight of the metaphysical basis that is alluded to in that work. Unfortunately, this is still the overriding concern of ‘occult scholars’, who are comparable to Ben Acher in the Talmudic text, who cut off the plants from their principle. In their attempt to find meaning in the texts, they instead find only baffling contradictions where no such contradictions exist. They rush at the ancient texts, cutting them to pieces with irrelevant analysis and supposition, piling in as many ‘learned’ references as possible, isolating ‘information’ from the wisdom and tabulating it into ‘systems’ of correspondences. This is then supposed to facilitate the ready application of knowledge, bypassing the need to understand anything at all!

The Book of Formation does not include the sephirotic model of the Tree of Life as used by the modern Hermeticists. There are many variations on how to make the twenty-two Hebrew letters ‘fit’ the Tree of Life, based on quite differing interpretations of the Book of Formation or other texts. Some will even get heated, arguing a case for this and that ‘system’ to be the correct one. Those who do so know nothing of metaphysics, for tabulated systems and diagrams, while having their use, destroy all metaphysical possibilities.

Our attribution of Hebrew letters to the twenty-two connecting paths is nonetheless derived from the Golden Dawn, who used the Athanasius Kircher arrangement.[1] The correspondences of the letters to the planets and Zodiac are as worked out (presumably) by Westcott and Mathers. These differ from that which is given in the Book of Formation, which is internally consistent—the letters of the planets follow the natural order of the alphabet from beth according to the seven days of the week: Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn. That does not suit our placement of letters and Tarot trumps to the twenty-two paths of the Tree of Life. There are also, it should be noted, different versions of the source codices, which give different correspondences. From Kircher onward, people even added Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.

In the Book of Formation, aleph corresponds to Air and is the first of a triadic principle. These are not the terrestrial elements; their operation is therefore on a higher plane than that of the classical four elements. Aleph is the principle, the first after Spirit (Elohim), as involved in manifestation. The other two principial or Mother letters are mem, corresponding to Water, and shin, corresponding to Fire. From these three Mother letters is formed, as we have previously mentioned, the three-dimensional cross of space, giving rise to height, depth and the four directions. All other principles are derived from them. As in other traditions, the letters are understood to be the word of God, and are as the leaves on the Tree of Life, or leaves in a Book of Life. The Book of Formation is thus based more upon the six directions of space as within a sphere than any linear diagrammatic model.

[1] Athanasius Kircher, Oedipus Aegyptiacus (published 1652 and 1654).

From Thirty-two paths of Wisdom [Ordo Astri].