The Kabbalah is a Jewish system of philosophy and practice designed to bring about a personal knowledge of God. Through the study of Kabbalistic teachings we may achieve a better understanding of the complex nature of the human mind and the underlying structure of the universe; through the diligent practice of Kabbalistic exercises we awaken our higher spiritual perceptions and abilities that usually lie dormant.

No one knows how or when the Kabbalah originated. It cannot even be said to have a beginning, in a distinct sense. The Kabbalah grew out of discussions between Jewish holy men concerning the concealed meanings that lie behind the words of the Torah or Pentateuch -- the first five books of the Old Testament that in ancient times were attributed to the prophet Moses. These dialogues between rabbis, along with fragments of Jewish lore and Jewish folk tales, make up the bodies of writings known as the Talmud, concerning the laws of God, and the Midrash, concerning Jewish legends and commentaries on scripture. The Kabbalah has its roots in these sources.

The two topics that fascinated early Jewish mystics most were the first chapter of the Book of Ezekiel that describes the throne of God, and the first chapter of the Book of Genesis that describes the creation of the world. These branches of study came to be known, respectively as the ma'aseh merkabah and the ma'aseh bereshit. The active attempt by early Jewish mystics to penetrate the mysteries of God using these texts as their keys was the basis for the philosophical approach of later Kabbalists, who sought to use texts of the Torah as philosophical levers to open in their minds a useful, applicable understanding of reality and human purpose. They were not so much interested in knowledge for its own sake, but sought a special type of knowledge that would allow them to approach and commune with God for practical benefit such union would have for their souls.

What distinguishes the Kabbalah from Jewish philosophy in general is the emphasis on the occult power of Hebrew letters and words, particularly the names or attributions of God. In the strict sense, God cannot be said to have a name. The numerous names for God that exist in the literature of the Kabbalah are really descriptive titles of God's various functions. For example, Adonai literally means Lord. Kabbalists manipulate the numerical values of the letters in the words of the Torah, especially the letters in the various names of God, to derive insights into the nature of reality.

Kabbalists found that they could use the names of God, the names of the angels, and significant passages of the Torah, for the purposes of practical magic, such as the making of avertive charms to protect women during childbirth, or to drive away demons. This is the practical side of the Kabbalah, and it is probably more ancient than the philosophical Kabbalah. Jewish magicians known as Ba'alei ha-Shem, or Masters of the Name, combined the techniques of magic they had acquired from the Babylonians and Egyptians with the authority and power of the holy Hebrew names of God to create a unique form of Jewish magic. It was centuries later that this practical occultism acquired the profound philosophical teachings that distinguish the theoretical Kabbalah.

The modern Jewish Kabbalah achieved the form we are familiar with today in the writings of the Spanish Jew Moses b. Shem Tov de Leon (died 1305), who published in a series of texts the work known as the Sefer ha-Zohar (Book of Splendor). This is a large collection of writings that consist for the most part of dialogues between Jewish rabbis in which the secret meanings of the Torah are revealed, often by means of the Kabbalistic manipulation of Hebrew letters and words.

However, the Kabbalah, even in its recognized from, is centuries older than the Zohar. The most important Kabbalistic text is a brief essay known as the Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Formation), which may be conjecturally dated to the second century. In this extremely important work the creation of the universe is described using the structure of the Hebrew alphabet as its template. Different sets of letters are identified with various stages in the Creation.

One of the most important structures used by Kabbalists to understand the process of creation is the ten Sephiroth, mentioned in the Book of Formation. Each Sephirah is a number, but also a living essence in the successive stages of the creation of the universe. Creation begins with one and reaches its fulfillment with ten. The Sephiroth were assigned ten specific names of God. These names were not thought of by Kabbalists as labels for the Sephiroth, but as the actual Sephiroth themselves. According to Kabbalistic teachings, God created the world with words uttered upon the breath -- therefore the word of each Sephirah is the creative force of that Sephirah.

Kabbalists tried to understand the relationship between the ten Sephiroth by arranging them in a bewildering variety of patterns. The most significant was the assignment of the Sephiroth to the body of Adam Kadmon, the Heavenly Man who was the prototype for the human race. They were also arranged in a radial pattern because the creation was believed to have begun with a single point and to have expanded outward. A relatively late arrangement of the Sephiroth took the form of three columns of spheres connected by channels. There are different versions of this Tree of the Sephiroth in which the arrangement of the connecting channels differs. The version presented by Athanasius Kircher in his work Oedipus Aegypticus, published in 1652, is the form of the Tree that was adopted by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

It may seem redundant to use the term Jewish Kabbalah, when on the face of it the Kabbalah is inherently Jewish, having been invented and used by Jews for centuries, but the form of Kabbalah that has gained popularity in modern Western magic bears very little resemblance to the traditional Jewish Kabbalah. The magic Kabbalah or Western Kabbalah, as it is sometimes called, is based almost entirely on Kircher's arrangement of the ten Sephiroth on the framework that is usually known as the Tree of Life.

Kircher (or his source, which I do not know) assigned the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet to the channels on the Tree that in his arrangement are twenty-two in number. Those who use the Tree of Life in their magic usually have no idea where it originated, or that there were others forms with fewer or more channels that are equally valid. They believe that the modern magic form is the only form. Indeed, they often mistakenly thing that the glyph of the Tree of Life is the Kabbalah, all of it.

The Tree of Life became popular in modern magic when the leader of the Golden Dawn, S. L. MacGregor Mathers, perhaps with the help of the co-founder of the Order, Wynn Westcott, assigned the trumps of the Tarot to the paths on the Tree. This was possible because the Hebrew letters had been placed on the Tree already in Kircher's diagram, and Mathers had made a correspondence between the Hebrew letters and the Tarot trumps. The trumps of the Tarot had already acquired a complex set of meanings, thanks to the work of French occultists such as Papus and Eliphas Levi. By assigning them to the specific Hebrew letters in the channels on the Tree, these meanings for the individual trumps became interrelated in a very complex and significant way. Each card was defined by the meanings attached to the two Sephiroth that terminated its pathway on the Tree, and by its relative position on the Tree, and by the Hebrew letter resident in its channel and its meanings.

To most Western occultists working during the past century or so, the Tree of the Sephiroth and the Kabbalah are synonymous. The Tree is used to understand the individual cards of the Tarot, and the Tarot trumps to understand different aspects of the Tree. The Hebrew letters unite these two complex and subtle occult structures.

The pathways or channels on the Tree are employed by magicians as subjects of meditations and visualizations designed to elevate consciousness to higher levels. In the Golden Dawn this was known as scrying in the spirit vision and rising on the planes. Sets of occult correspondences created by the linking of the Tarot with the Tree of the Sephiroth are also used to create talismans and seals. But the most important function of the Tree of Life is to provide a structure or framework for understanding and relating the natures of the macrocosm (universe) and microcosm (human being).

The Kabbalah, even the limited form that is used in Western magic, is a complex and deep study that is especially difficult for beginners. Once a certain understanding of its basic concepts and structures has been acquired, advancing in study becomes easier, but at first it can appear bewildering and overwhelming. It is impossible to study the Kabbalah as it is used in modern magic without an extensive understanding of the Tarot. The two are inseparable.

Beginners do well by learning the names, shapes, number values and occult meanings for the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, including how to actually draw the letters; also the titles and their meanings, divine names, and other associations of the ten Sephiroth on the Tree; also the names, numbers, astrological glyphs, and associated Hebrew letters for the twenty-two picture cards, or trumps, of the Tarot.

There is not enough space in this brief essay to examine the Tree of Life in detail. You should refer to the image of the Tree that is linked to my Sources and Resources page.

Basically, the process of creation, the unfolding of being from God, begins with Kether (The Crown) at the top of the Tree and is fulfilled with Malkuth (The Kingdom) at the bottom of the Tree. Energy or divine virtue descends down the Sephiroth in the order of their numbers, from one (Kether) to ten (Malkuth), tracing a zigzag line that is known as the Way of the Lightning. It is considered possible through the practice of meditation, contemplation, visualization and various ritual observances, to mentally ascend up the Tree, and thereby attain a higher state of consciousness. This convoluted way of ascent, which follows the numbering of the channels, is known as the Way of the Serpent. It is also believed that there are different ways of ascent made possible by the various branches of the Tree that are more direct than the Way of the Serpent.

The Tree has four primary levels. The lowest or fourth level is the world of Assiah, called the world of Action, in which occurs the action and reaction of matter and energy. Assiah contains Malkuth, the Sephirah of the four material elements, and also the realm of the lower spirits known as the Qlippoth or Shells.

The next highest or third level is the world of Yetzirah, called the Formative world, in which exist the patterns and forms of physical things like shadows of our familiar reality. This is the lower and higher astral realms so familiar to modern occultism. Yetzirah contains the three Sephiroth Yesod (Foundation), Hod (Splendor) and Netzach (Victory). Yesod is the sphere of the Moon, and corresponds with what we generally call the astral plane. The other two Sephiroth are higher aspects of this world. Yetzirah is the world of the lower angels.

The second level is the world of Briah, called the Creative world, in which the patterns existing in Yetzirah are evolved. This world may be likened to higher concepts of the mind that do not have explicit forms. It contains the three Sephiroth Tiphareth (Beauty), Geburah (Strength) and Chesed (Love). Tiphareth is the sphere of the Sun and all its astrological associations. Briah as a whole is the world of the archangels.

The first level of the Tree is the world of Atziluth, called the Archetypal world. This is the realm of inspiration and of gnosis. It is the place where dwells the spark that initiates the patterns that are nurtured in Briah, formed in Yetzirah, and given substance in Assiah. It is said to be the world of pure deity.

There are innumerable books about the Tree of the Sephiroth. It is the main symbolic structure used in modern magic of the Golden Dawn tradition, and is arguably the most important advance in magic over the past five hundred years. Most of these books only nibble around the edges of the Tree's meaning. This is perhaps inevitable, since the meaning of the Tree is too complex to be contained in any single work.

I recommend that anyone wishing to learn about the Tree of the Sephiroth, as it is used in modern Western magic, study The Golden Dawn by Israel Regardie. This book contains the original teaching papers studied by initiates into the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. What these documents taught the initiates, they can also teach you.

Also very useful are The Mystical Qabalah by Dion Fortune, Sepher Yetzirah by Wynn Westcott, A Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism by Gareth Knight, The Kabbalah Unveiled by S. L. MacGregor Mathers, The Ladder of Lights by William G. Gray, The Book of Thoth by Aleister Crowley, The Tarot by Paul Foster Case, and Q. B. L. or The Bride's Reception by Frater Achad. Every one of these writers is firmly based in the Golden Dawn system. Their books serve to illuminate the original Golden Dawn documents.