Anyone here knows about Kabbalah?

Just something to point out, you may want to play Tales of the Abyss. It seems to take a lot of it's ideas from this stuff. The various cities in Auldrant(The world To A takes place in) are all named after branches of the Sephiroth for example. Grand Chokmah, Keterburg, Chesedonia, St. Binah etc.

Ok, to get an idea of how weird that sounds to me, lemme translate those for you:

Grand Wisdom, Crownburg, Kindnessdonia, St. Understanding...

They're not meaningless collections of syllibles, people! They're actual Hebrew words! They mean things.

I've never seen anything Japanese do anything Jewish right. Evangelion is a huge offender, and Tales of the Abyss sounds like another. It's all just window dressing.

I just felt like I ought to point it out since the only time I've ever actually seen such things even referenced.

The Kabbalah page has a list of works that reference it, apparently, which makes sense since that's the point of the site... oh, I should add Illuminatus.

Urgh, I HATE when people, Japanese or Hollywood, using religious or philosophic themes without even understanding what they mean! Being a Christian, that annoys me big times, hence my dedication to research...although I have to confess, I have this urge to just skip it and just run with Rule of Cool.

Whut.

Basically, the Sephirot are god's attributes, and at the same time represent attributes of the human soul and body, and the world at large. And then of course, there's the Adam Qadmon, the Shvirah, and the Tzimtzum... ;-)

Not to forget the Golem, but the book of that name has very very little to do with actual Kabbalah, though still more than the Kabbalah Centre that Madonna attends (or attended for a while, I guess). That's just watered-down "The Secret"/pop-kabbalistic hogwash.

Well... it really depends on where you want to take it.

For a thorough scientific analysis, read Gershom Scholem, still THE specialist on the subject.

If you want fancy esotericism, I'd go for Dion Fortune, Aleister Crowley (always fun to read), and whatever you find in your local New Age store.

If you want unreadable source material, go for the Sepher Yetzirah and the Sepher Zohar. Those are basically the two books that started it all.

And finally, to lose yourself completely in really, REALLY weird (but also, really, REALLY fascinating) speculation, read Friedrich Weinreb's "Schöpfung im Wort". That guy wrote whole chapters about a single verse of the bible!

Word of warning: Be prepared for getting washed away in fascinating but overwhelming associations and meaningful vagueness. It can be quite a journey, but it can also give you bitter headaches. I guess the best advice here is: Just... don't take it too seriously.

edited 11th Jul '11 11:13:46 PM by vijeno

Matthew: Actually, I find that rather intriguing. It's like "Ahhh... so THIS is what my culture looks like from a very distant point of view!" - Quite interesting, that.

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@Vijeno: Dont they also represent stages in the life journey? Or is that part of the new age nonsense?

I can't say. I haven't heard about it in classic kabbalah, but my knowledge is far from comprehensive and the field is rather large. I'm pretty sure the 22 paths (i.e., the hebrew letters) were linked to the stages of life at some point. Probably even in the zohar. Basically, the sephirot and the letters were linked to almost everything at some point, and of course there are no clear criteria to determine what is valid classic kabbalah, and what is new age nonsense. If you want to get a feel for what is "real", I'd urge you to read some of the more popular works written by actual academic scholars. And do read the sepher jetzira - it's pretty short, and it will give you insight into the way those folks thought, rather than one specific interpretation.