Qabalah

The Qabalah (note: one of many variations in spelling!) is a huge subject in its own right. It is an ancient mystical system based on the Hebrew alphabet and its system of numbering. Essentially, every Hebrew letter is also a number. Because of this, words written in Hebrew are also numbers. The idea arose that words that had the same numerical value had a connection on one level or another. The system was applied to the Old Testament in order to gain further insight into the passages:

"For example, AChD unity (1+8+4)=13; and AHBH love (1+5+2+5)=13. This fact is held to indicate "The nature of Unity is Love". Then IHVH Jehovah (10+5+6+5)=26=2x13. Therefore: "Jehovah is Unity manifested in Duality"(Taken from "The Book of Thoth", Aleister Crowley)


The Tree of Life.

The Qabalah is a complete system of mysticism that draws entirely from numbers. A central part of the Qabalah is the Tree of Life. This is a series of spheres (or "sephiroth") numbered from one to ten and representing the gradual emanation of creation from the single unknowable point (in fact, beyond the single point lie three veils of nothingness). The sephira are connected by paths which are 22 in number and are each associated with a single letter of the Hebrew alphabet and a particular type of "force" or "concept" such as a sign of the zodiac, an element etc. Since the early days of the Qabalah, further associations have been made including cards of the Tarot, colours etc.

JMS 1998