Secret Societies: Inside the World's Most Notorious Organizations (18 page)

It's a challenging, confusing and inhibiting task, this attempt at knowing the unknowable, and in one sense Kabbalah represents a technique of by-passing logic to fathom these meanings with a transformation of consciousness. Other disciplines that employ similar techniques to achieve similar results include Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Zen and some forms of yoga. Originally, extensive training was required to elevate the searcher's consciousness to the necessary level, a process involving a sequence of experiences, each more radical and demanding in its methods.

With time Kabbalah became a label encompassing the entire range of Jewish philosophy, designed to probe the mysteries of life and death by discovering the essence of God. As evidence, Kabbalah scholars point to elements of this search in the Bible, including portions of the opening chapter of Ezekiel:

The heavens opened and I saw visions of God…. I looked and lo, a stormy wind came sweeping out of the north—a huge cloud and flashing fire surrounded by a radiance; and in the center of the fire, a gleam of ember. (Ezekiel 1: 1,4)

The mystical study of the Creator may have been important, but in the opinion of many rabbis it was also dangerous. According to a well-known Talmudic story, four rabbis once gathered to immerse themselves in mystical studies, vowing to remain in deep contemplation of the Torah's meaning until they reached an understanding. Over time one went mad, another died a premature death, and a third became a heretic, abandoning the faith of his fathers. Only the fourth entered the discussion in peace and left it in peace. This tale, and stories of others who became mentally unbalanced while engaged in deep contemplation of Kabbalah teachings, served for centuries as a warning that these deep mystical secrets are not to be trifled with.

Whatever the true meaning of the Torah, Kabbalists generally agree that it is best viewed as a practical tool, not an intellectual exercise. Like all tools, it should be applied for the
constructive purpose of enlightening humanity and not practiced in solitude with the selfish goal of enriching the reader materially or intellectually. Ultimately, Kabbalists share similar goals with traditional religions, especially with Gnostics. Both seek answers to vexing questions:
Why did a good and merciful God introduce evil into the world He created? How could an infinite God create a finite world? How is it possible for humans to know the Unknowable?

Kabbalah deals with the mystery in two ways, one logical and the other allegorical. The logical explanation states that e
very idea contains its own contradiction
, and since God is the sum of all ideas, He contains all contradictions. Good and evil, justice and injustice, mercy and cruelty, limits and infinity, and other opposites are all united into a greater whole that is God.

The allegorical version suggests God is a mirror that shines a brilliant light towards the world. Before the light reaches us, it is directed through a series of several mirrors; each time His light is reflected towards us, it loses brilliance until, by the time it reaches earth, much of the radiance has been absorbed and the pure light is blemished. Among the blemishes are elements of evil and pain, and humans must either see beyond these blemishes or move closer to the source of light and its original holy brilliance.

If followers of Kabbalah merely sought knowledge of questions that have vexed every culture through the ages, why were they considered secretive and sinister? And how effective is the movement in dealing with these mysteries today?

To simplify an understanding of Kabbalah and its followers, the movement can be divided into three eras or phases: ancient, medieval and modern. Each is distinct from the other to the point where the differences are more prevalent than the similarities.

Depending on the shade of your religious belief, Kabbalah reaches back to the desecration of Eden when angels, who acquired the wisdom of Kabbalah directly from God, brought its lessons to Adam in an effort to help him and Eve return to the embrace of the Creator. Subscribers to this tale believe the
same knowledge was passed to Noah, Abraham and finally Moses, who included the first four books of the Bible into Kabbalistic teachings.

In addition to these biblical writings, three other books dominate ancient Kabbalah philosophy: The Book of Creation (
Sepher Yetzirah
); the Book of Splendor (
Sepher ha Zohar
); and
Apocalypse
, the Book of Revelation. Some followers of Kabbalah claim Abraham authored the Book of Creation, although modern scholars date its writing from ad 12. The Book of Splendor originated around ad 160, authored by Rabbi Shimeon bar Yochai who, sentenced to death by the coregent of Roman Emperor Aurelius Antoninus, hid in a cave for twelve years while he wrote the text.

The author of the Apocalypse may or may not have been St. John the Divine, and its role within both Kabbalah and Christian society continues to be controversial. A few scholars label it “pagan writing,” born from the scheming mind of someone steeped in Egyptian and Greek mysticism, and composed as a counterattack on the efforts of Christians to convert pagans. According to this theory, Apocalypse was meant to serve as a means of converting Christians back to pagans. In a corollary to this idea, popular in the early part of the twentieth century, the “pagans” may well have been Jews seeking to satirize Christianity for their own amusement and ends. Whatever its origins and intent, the scenes of death, destruction and selective salvation in Apocalypse are difficult for modern readers to comprehend, especially identities linked to its many allegories. To readers more than 1500 years ago, for example, the allegory of the Great Whore that appears in Apocalypse refers to Babylon, and the beast with seven heads that she rode would be understood to represent Rome and its seven hills.

Ignoring these coded interpretations, contemporary readers, especially those in fundamentalist/evangelistic branches of the faith, appear to delight in the visions of Apocalypse, discovering prophecies and foreseeing myths that two millennia of Hebrew scholars appear to have overlooked.

More relevant and intriguing than the question of authorship or even the specific aim of the ancient books is the Sephiroth or Tree of Life, derived from the allegory of God's perfect light blemished during its reflected journey to earth. Out of this concept of an emanation from the Creator came nine more, producing ten linked centers joined by pathways. The result was a device which, with all due respect to sincere followers of Kabbalah, resembles a cosmic board game.

The Sephiroth has been traced back at least as far as the tenth century, with some Hebrew scholars suggesting it originated as early as the third century, first presented in the
Sepher Yetzirah
, or Book of Creation. According to the Sepher Yetzirah, God employed thirty-two secret paths of knowledge when creating the world, consisting of the ten emanations of the Sephiroth (each emanation is called a
sephirot
) plus the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Together, all thirty-two components represent the Tree of Life and are the central image of Kabbalistic meditation. In addition to the path that God used to descend into the material world—and the route mortals must take in their ascension to God—the elements of the Sephiroth actually spell the sacred name of God.

At this point, things become dense and complex.

The base of the Sephiroth (Malkut) represents the world, with all of its flaws and perfections. The pinnacle (Keter) represents God, or the Supreme Crown. The rest are identified in this fashion:

The ancient Sephiroth or Tree of Life, tracing the path from earth to heaven's perfection.

Three triangles are formed by the nine sephirots and connecting pathways above the Malkut. These symbolize the human body; the topmost represents the head, the middle represents the trunk and arms, and the bottom represents legs and the reproductive organs.

Employing the Sephiroth, mankind can ascend to God by moving upwards through one sephirot at a time, gaining the wisdom of each before moving to the next. Each sephirot is divided into four sections, with each section representing one of Four Worlds: the world of Archetypes (Aziluth); the world of Creation (Briah); the world of Form (Yetzirah); and the Material world (Assirah). Each sephirot also holds the sacred unknowable and unspeakable name of God, Yahweh or the Tetragrammaton, a word so hallowed that other words, including Elohim, Adonai and Jehovah, are substituted for it in scriptures employed by the Kabbalah.

Adding a fillip of gamesmanship to the concept of the Sephiroth as a religio-philosophical puzzle or ecclesiastical Ouija board was the principle that angels guard every sephirot. Their role is to prevent climbers from ascending closer to God unless they possess the acquired wisdom, purity of soul, and determination to continue their climb to the next sephirot.

Everyone familiar with Kabbalah knows and understands the Sephiroth, but few completely agree on its purpose or application. Some believe it represents stages of the creative process used by God to create a succession of realms that eventually produced the universe. Others suggest that it signifies fundamental laws of physics such as gravity and magnetism.

To ancient mystics, the Sephiroth provided unlimited opportunities to explore, intellectually and spiritually, the primary mystery of life. Tracing its paths, assessing its components and exchanging views on its meanings generated as much
cultural diversion for them as any twenty-first-century electronic entertainment device produces for ourselves, although the Sephiroth's aims are infinitely higher, of course. This explains why Kabbalah and the use of the Sephiroth spread across Europe into Germany and Italy, and how it spawned multiple offshoots and interpretations. These varying meanings were either staunchly defended by its adherents or discussed only in code at secret meetings.

The complexity of the Sephiroth's design, the density of its interpretation, its role as a code-breaking device available exclusively to Kabbalah's devotees, and latent anti-Semitism all bred fear and suspicion among outsiders, many of whom suspected that Kabbalah devotees were members of a secret society bent on overthrowing Christianity.

In the thirteenth century, a Spanish Jew named Moses de Leon injected new layers of mystique into Kabbalah, and new sources of paranoia among outsiders who considered the movement a threat. Depending upon your point of view, de Leon was either a brilliant religious mystic with the good fortune to stumble upon an ancient Kabbalah document, or a medieval P. T. Barnum.

Born in 1250, Moses de Leon could use colorful phrases devoid of any well-defined thought to pontificate on almost any subject, like today's ebullient pitchmen selling kitchen gadgets on late-night television. He wrote several manuscripts dealing with Kabbalistic principles, some of them intentionally provocative, but his
Midrash de R. Shimeon bar Yochai
, better known as the Zohar (“Splendor”), essentially revitalized and redirected Kabbalah.

Written in Aramaic, the language of the Talmud, the Zohar is an extended commentary on the Torah, the first five works of the Bible, seeking to explore the mystical aspects of its familiar stories. The Zohar defines the human soul as comprising three elements:
nefesh
, or lower animal part, linked to instincts and bodily cravings;
ruach
, or middle soul, containing moral virtues; and
neshamah
, the highest measure of the soul. Besides separating
man from animals, the neshamah enables humankind to share in an afterlife. De Leon, who claimed he had come into possession of the original document drafted by Rabbi bar Yochai, produced and sold several copies.

From the outset, readers of the Zohar were split about its meaning and authenticity. The most ardent followers of Kabbalah and many eminent scholars of the Talmud accepted de Leon's claim that the Zohar's contents were revelations from God handed down through Rabbi bar Yochai to his devoted disciples more than 1000 years earlier. Others were less certain, and more than a few suspected de Leon of fraud. This latter opinion is supported by the story of a wealthy man who, following de Leon's death in 1305, approached de Leon's widow and offered a large sum of money in exchange for the original ancient document of the Zohar. The widow, left destitute, confessed there was no original: her husband had been the sole author. “When I asked him many times why he put his teachings in the mouths of others,” she explained, “he always answered that doctrines placed in the mouth of the miracle-working Shimeon would be a better source of profit.”