NCOT said:
probably better than you can especially if I know them.
agreed, but anecdotal is not always compelling.
Etu Malku said:
i could say the same thing about anti-religious positions.
but I recognize other minds and a world. Like sees like.
well, that is pretty much what is meant by being Created in the Divine Image - we strive to imitate G!D: "you must be holy, for I Am Holy".
Scholem and Luria certainly have veiws about Qabalah that I embrace
scholem is, of course an eminent academic authority, but his opinions are academic, rather than religious. the views of luria, or the ariza"l, as i would term him, do *not* include the notion that G!D Is fictional. i think you're taking his notion of the shevirath ha-qelim (breaking of the vessels) and turning it into something that he wouldn't recognise. certainly he would not be on the side of the qelippoth. similarly, his notions about the mission of the jewish people and the central, nay, cosmic importance of Torah cannot be overlooked.
but Judaic Qabalah is not the whole of my studies.
i suppose it depends on what you mean by kabbalah. what *i* mean is the jewish mystical tradition. it is somewhat bizarre for people to talk about kabbalah as if it was possible to remove it from judaism, Torah learning, the people / community and the desire for a better, more moral, more ethical world, or, indeed, the comming of a messianic age. i mean, i'm curious. in what sense do you mean "non-judaic qabalah"? dion fortune? mcgregor mathers? aleister crowley?
As for "winning", since I don't believe any of this stuff to be anything more than paradigms of the unconsciousness, I'm free to choose whatever aspects of whichever system resonates with me . . . dude, it's ALL MAKE-BELIEVE, have Chaotic fun with it!
you see, this is where i think you fail to understand just how bound up kabbalah is with the practice of judaism and belonging to a real-life, flesh-and-blood community that lives in the real world and experiences history. if it's all just a bunch of mental games to you then i think you've missed something really important about what kabbalah actually is. in the nicest possible way and with no intent to patronise (you seem like a robust enough individual) until you have experienced the presence of the Shekhinah through the lighting of the Shabbath candles, or the gathering of the sparks from the six physical directions through the manipulation of the 'arba minim, or the angelic elevation of the Qedushah of morning prayers, i don't think you can have the least idea of the nature of this. it may be a theoretical construct to you, but i work every day with the underlying patterns of reality through my daily life. i'm not in fact saying that kabbalah can't be useful, meaningful and practical for non-observant jews or non-jews, but the idea that you can divorce it from judaism, redefine its purpose and use it to create this idea of a "left hand path" as somehow separate from a "right hand path"; this, i must admit, i have trouble with. i cannot see myself as an adherent of either "path", as opposed to someone who works to integrate all three pillars working through, i suppose, an "integrating path".
b'shalom
bananabrain
