Qabalah: A Magical Primer

Few books succeed as well as John Bonner’s work in making the Qabalah accessible through a comprehensive overview of … the Tree of Life. —From the Foreword While it began as a mystical interpretation of Jewish scriptural texts, today Qabalah is much more. As John Bonner writes in his introduction, Qabalah is a metaphysical philosophy, or rather a theosophy, that sets out to answer a series of vital questions regarding the nature of God, His creation, and the place of man in His divine plan. It is a living, growing system of personal development. In addition, much of contemporary Western magick is founded on the work of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which based its ritual and teachings firmly in Qabalah. This scholarly introduction explores the mysteries of Qabalah through the symbolism of the Tree of Life and its four distinct elements: the three Pillars of Manifestation, the ten Holy Sephiroth, the Paths that lie between the Sephiroth, and the Veils. For each Sephirah, Bonner provides detailed information on magical, astrological, and tarot correspondences, as well as how different religious traditions relate to the concepts contained in each. The Foreword by Hymenaeus Beta, Frater Superior of Aleister Crowley’s Ordo Templi Orientis, places the book in context by comparing it to both historical and current Qabalistic literature.