Tempted of the Devil or Passages in the Life of a Kabbalist

by August Becker, M. W. MacDowall (translator)

1888. The two forms of theosophy which excited the most attention, and attracted the largest number of earnest students, were Zoroastrianism, and the occult teaching of the Jews as contained in the Kabbalah or Qabalah. It is with this latter that we are now concerned, for in "Des Rabbi Vermachtnis," the novel from which our story is taken, Dr. Becker describes the effect which the study of the Practical Kabbalah had on the lives and characters of the initiated, and those who came in contact with them.

330 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2003

Reviews

[Osiris Oliphant]

from the Scots Observer

Tempted of the Devil, Passages in the Life of a Kabbalist; a story retold from the German of August Becker by M. W. Macdowall.

In a valuable preface, the translator supplies an interesting account of the mystical theosophy of the Jewish Kabbalah, which helps greatly to elucidate the effect shown in the novel to have been produced by occult teaching on the lives of the initiated and those who came in contact with them.

The tale is that of Pastor Bergmann, a German clergyman of the 'Storm and Stress' period, who devotes himself to the enthusiastic pursuit of mysterious knowledge greatly affected at that time. ... his search after hidden things merely drives him to doubt, which settles down into unbelief, followed by a somewhat dissolute mode of life....

The death of his father.... leaves his Thuringian home for a charge on the shores of the Baltic.... Count Von Seeried Strandow, the lord of the manor, although a disciple of Voltaire, has a secret dread of a Kabbalistic prophecy...

...certain information by means of which he unravels the mysteries that formerly baffled him. Once in possession of this power, he employs it to raise a spirit which he dares not face, and which finally dashes him to the ground, well-nigh killing him... he forsakes altogether his unlawful studies... while in his old age he writes the story of his life for the guidance of his son...

~The vast store of theosophic lore at the author's command almost buries out of sight the human interest of his work.

It must be confessed that the details given of Kabbalistic books are very trying, and that the foot-notes added to them are even more annoying.

The fact is that ninety per cent. of mysticism to ten per cent. of narrative is a reversal of natural proportion which is calculated to provoke resentment.

Despite much that is 'Teutonic and wonderful,' however, the story possesses an amount of interest which compels the attention to the close of any one who begins it. The method in which the novel is planned has a German minuteness and a quaint simplicity which is extremely attractive.

It is to be regretted that the writer should have been more concerned to exhibit his knowledge of occultism than of humanity, because he has thus done much to spoil a powerful book.