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Kabbalah: Tradition of Hidden Knowledge
Traces the evolution of various forms of kabbalah, outlining the early period of biblical and talmudic cosmology and using ideas developed during the medieval era to set forth a kabbalistic view of the origins and structure of existence
96 pages, Paperback
First published November 19, 1979
About the author
Z'ev Ben Shimon Halevi
79 books22 followersZ'ev ben Shimon Halevi (English name, Warren Kenton) is an author of books on the Toledano Tradition of Kabbalah, a teacher of the discipline, with a worldwide following, and a founder member of the Kabbalah Society.
For books written using his English name, Warren Kenton see:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
For books written using his English name, Warren Kenton see:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 7, 2019
For only 96 pages, almost half being illustration, this is the most comprehensive work I have ever come across on Kabbalah. It is succinct but not abbreviated on any point.
There are density layers to the multiverse, that all 12 Archaic Culture’s lore from around our globe knew, which are now forgotten were it not for works as this.
We see them in the Elkna’m American Indian teachings, the Incan Priests many worlds, Pali Buddhism on the celestial and supercelestial realms and Nidaya; never is something called “heaven” in the New Testament but *heavens* (even a half initiate like Paul “being taken up into the third” of the many glories he mentions); all ancient science knew of such dimensions: Proclus delineates the thousand year old school of Pythagoras’ teaching on the psychopomp of various level Propaters at each such stage which reveal this root teaching behind all Western Paganism that taught such densities.
All Western Knowledge of modernity stemmed out from and could not exist without this Pythagorean school and such teachings, its revivals as universities that flowed out from such and the neo-platonist kabbalists surrounding them centuries after that propounded on all these matters that were equally known centuries before as to these layers that are specifically delineated by Sufi’s such as Ibn El Arabi and then of course Shimon Ben Yohai of Galilee in the 100’s AD affiliated with the gnostic essenes (the true disciples of the disciples) who taught these layers per even their enemies.
Iolo Morganwg revealed original Celtic doctrine that speaks on all these same density layers too and their names, the totemistic Haida had all these same up in the Arctic.
The utter and thorough denial of all and exactly all such today of global man’s rich heritage though, and this by new odd exotericist vs reductionist, equally misguided men, trying to reinvent the wheel and not sure about anything as to separate ecosystems of dimensional material density anymore that beinghood can reside within, it is not just Judaism being now anti-semitically disrespected by such being waylaid, it is the world and the Archaic Ariya Path before, were it not for a few works like these preserving all such once again in our day.
Almost no one today, ask anyone on the street or around you, knows of these layers were it not for this work, this ladder Jacob was said to behold and Judas Didymus’ letter, arguably half brother to Iasus and author of Jude, saw in psychological trends people would mostly all deny in future periods as they fell further asleep.
I could go on for a thousand pages on all our own sacred Archaic Cultures from around the globe knowing all theses same details about all these same dimensional levels of material density to being existence and man’s multi-tiered psychology of such lofty Ariya teaching that shares the same and is being waylaid were it not for a few works like this one (and only today perhaps a few weighty books also directly written by Gurdjieff and Blavatsky that retain the exact same details as well).
So this work is a monument in the face of all moderns today who are titanically and utterly indoctrinated out of their own roots, organically disconnected from all 12 of their Archaic Culture’s own roots on the subtle layers to man and universe and now with flat limited B rate recent Freudian psychology and trendy post-empiricist world views they always thought were inside a man being as modus operandi. But such breadth, or lack therof, is truly unfit, only fit for destroying the compositional structures to all reality they now know nothing about besides the micro-dimensional jackings and trappings of now, structures they are well underway in the participatory destruction of, stemming out as a result from such unholistic outlooks (I speak of the atom bomb and bio-warfare no one is concerned about)..
This work shows another way to another world, indeed many other worlds, different from such directions. Great praise to it, as above so below all working together harmonically.
My spiritual kabbalist godfather was this authors student, so perhaps I am a bit biased; but so too is all the ancient world in all our cultures toward such weighty and lofty matters; and so too is biased the coming new age and ancient alien types rising in majority numbers around major cities and countrysides all over the world again today who will not be inharmonic materia manipulators as this generation was.
In Ein Sof are 3
And then comes even 4:
Atziluth Emanations (come next)
Beriah Creations from this
Yetzirah Formations, the Platonic world of Faé forms
Assiyah Physical ActAeons, earths
These are the densities to the undense.
May all the coming world come to know the layers and the densities that truly make the multiverse through, at first, just a few small seed works as this book in review that were on the earth only in rivulet...before man consciousness changed to see as it does (in the future after the coming earth traumas).
May this period be remembered as one where all the masses at the time were laughing at the idea there are dimensions in us and the Cosmos we live with that are indispensable to us for all time; for they were very dispensable to this haughty time.
In the future, dimensions will just be part and parcel to being existence and it will be hard for them to believe it if they were to read this here from so long ago; but it is true in this era I am stuck in here, all hierarchy to man was dispensable and dispensed with; now that they had genocided off all our priest-king Pharaohs and then even protectorate kings and attacked all hierarchical religion all around the earth and then delved deep into hellacious atoms to control sacred beings here on this realm by, then they came to forbid talk of breadth, dimensionality to us even in this age I am now in with its “post-structuralist faux universalist” attack on the equally deluded exo-religious who don’t know they already have their dimensionality to them stripped from them because they didn’t seek it in them but just simmered over piccadillos instead during their time here.
It should be remembered, even though this era will be a freak anomaly and curiosity to future man, how really odd and unselfdesignated humans are to have formed such a mass mentality of such destruction as this era mostly all has in them, except a few such as this kind and sagacious author with a work such as this.
There are density layers to the multiverse, that all 12 Archaic Culture’s lore from around our globe knew, which are now forgotten were it not for works as this.
We see them in the Elkna’m American Indian teachings, the Incan Priests many worlds, Pali Buddhism on the celestial and supercelestial realms and Nidaya; never is something called “heaven” in the New Testament but *heavens* (even a half initiate like Paul “being taken up into the third” of the many glories he mentions); all ancient science knew of such dimensions: Proclus delineates the thousand year old school of Pythagoras’ teaching on the psychopomp of various level Propaters at each such stage which reveal this root teaching behind all Western Paganism that taught such densities.
All Western Knowledge of modernity stemmed out from and could not exist without this Pythagorean school and such teachings, its revivals as universities that flowed out from such and the neo-platonist kabbalists surrounding them centuries after that propounded on all these matters that were equally known centuries before as to these layers that are specifically delineated by Sufi’s such as Ibn El Arabi and then of course Shimon Ben Yohai of Galilee in the 100’s AD affiliated with the gnostic essenes (the true disciples of the disciples) who taught these layers per even their enemies.
Iolo Morganwg revealed original Celtic doctrine that speaks on all these same density layers too and their names, the totemistic Haida had all these same up in the Arctic.
The utter and thorough denial of all and exactly all such today of global man’s rich heritage though, and this by new odd exotericist vs reductionist, equally misguided men, trying to reinvent the wheel and not sure about anything as to separate ecosystems of dimensional material density anymore that beinghood can reside within, it is not just Judaism being now anti-semitically disrespected by such being waylaid, it is the world and the Archaic Ariya Path before, were it not for a few works like these preserving all such once again in our day.
Almost no one today, ask anyone on the street or around you, knows of these layers were it not for this work, this ladder Jacob was said to behold and Judas Didymus’ letter, arguably half brother to Iasus and author of Jude, saw in psychological trends people would mostly all deny in future periods as they fell further asleep.
I could go on for a thousand pages on all our own sacred Archaic Cultures from around the globe knowing all theses same details about all these same dimensional levels of material density to being existence and man’s multi-tiered psychology of such lofty Ariya teaching that shares the same and is being waylaid were it not for a few works like this one (and only today perhaps a few weighty books also directly written by Gurdjieff and Blavatsky that retain the exact same details as well).
So this work is a monument in the face of all moderns today who are titanically and utterly indoctrinated out of their own roots, organically disconnected from all 12 of their Archaic Culture’s own roots on the subtle layers to man and universe and now with flat limited B rate recent Freudian psychology and trendy post-empiricist world views they always thought were inside a man being as modus operandi. But such breadth, or lack therof, is truly unfit, only fit for destroying the compositional structures to all reality they now know nothing about besides the micro-dimensional jackings and trappings of now, structures they are well underway in the participatory destruction of, stemming out as a result from such unholistic outlooks (I speak of the atom bomb and bio-warfare no one is concerned about)..
This work shows another way to another world, indeed many other worlds, different from such directions. Great praise to it, as above so below all working together harmonically.
My spiritual kabbalist godfather was this authors student, so perhaps I am a bit biased; but so too is all the ancient world in all our cultures toward such weighty and lofty matters; and so too is biased the coming new age and ancient alien types rising in majority numbers around major cities and countrysides all over the world again today who will not be inharmonic materia manipulators as this generation was.
In Ein Sof are 3
And then comes even 4:
Atziluth Emanations (come next)
Beriah Creations from this
Yetzirah Formations, the Platonic world of Faé forms
Assiyah Physical ActAeons, earths
These are the densities to the undense.
May all the coming world come to know the layers and the densities that truly make the multiverse through, at first, just a few small seed works as this book in review that were on the earth only in rivulet...before man consciousness changed to see as it does (in the future after the coming earth traumas).
May this period be remembered as one where all the masses at the time were laughing at the idea there are dimensions in us and the Cosmos we live with that are indispensable to us for all time; for they were very dispensable to this haughty time.
In the future, dimensions will just be part and parcel to being existence and it will be hard for them to believe it if they were to read this here from so long ago; but it is true in this era I am stuck in here, all hierarchy to man was dispensable and dispensed with; now that they had genocided off all our priest-king Pharaohs and then even protectorate kings and attacked all hierarchical religion all around the earth and then delved deep into hellacious atoms to control sacred beings here on this realm by, then they came to forbid talk of breadth, dimensionality to us even in this age I am now in with its “post-structuralist faux universalist” attack on the equally deluded exo-religious who don’t know they already have their dimensionality to them stripped from them because they didn’t seek it in them but just simmered over piccadillos instead during their time here.
It should be remembered, even though this era will be a freak anomaly and curiosity to future man, how really odd and unselfdesignated humans are to have formed such a mass mentality of such destruction as this era mostly all has in them, except a few such as this kind and sagacious author with a work such as this.
September 3, 2026
this book supposedly has 100 pages, but since more than two thirds are fullpage pictures, it really falls under the category of coffee table books. which is in stark contrast to the first third which is not structured, brief or light as it foremost elaborates on the kaballah as a metaphysical system, whereas the question of praxis is secondary.
however, the author suffers from the common disease of experts where a familiarity with the subject interferes with clear, concise explanations. when you possess a lot of knowledge on the subject your understanding clusters around mental shortcuts that, to the outside observer, appear to be vague terms that lack semantic differentation from other concepts on the same level. there is also a lot of mention of adam kadmon, metatron, melchizedek, enoch, elijah, messiah and we are never told who is who and why theyre different and important
additionally, he conveniently omits all and any mention of the ontological hierarchy of souls found within the most influential kabbalistic school of the last hundred years - the chabad lubavitz. it is absolutely not trivial that non-jewish souls are there considered to be inferior to the jewish ones as they supposedly originate in the klippot. here, it must be noted that the conception that one is above it all by virtue of pedigree, probably the lowest state of consciousness one can be in. we have observed the effects of it both in the holocaust and the ghaza genocide.
as for the theory itself, i see two downsides that could result in two very real downfalls:
1. constructing trees of life for specific systems can be entirely misleading if we accidentally confuse levels of abstraction, which is exactly what the author does with his schema of "driving". the method is very prone to confirmation bias.
2. more importantly, as much as the book warns against the use of "magic" it still supports its primordial seed: the idea of tikun olam, i.e. repairing the world, which is in direct contradiction with genesis 1:31 ("God saw all that he had made, and it was very good."). here i think kabbalah as a whole and shimon halevi are "lost in the sauce", for they too focused on the ideal of witnessing gods presence through understanding and not so much on compassionate action towards (all) souls.
this promethean path is supported by the conception that man is made in the EXACT image of god and can therefore ascend to the upper three sephirot, which gives him the authority to undertake tikun olam. this is a fundamentally prideful endeavour - a humility before ones neighbour is paradoxically probably the better way to go about it.
an upside to the book are the interpretations of bible passages (genesis and exodus) as metaphors for internal spiritual events. it would be nice if contemporary understandings of "the holy land" consistently focused on its "beriah" nature and not palestine, which is in asiyah.
the reader could also see that its very likely that freuds ideas of the unconscious were probably not original but taken from this tradition. this has been argued by david bakan - not only through obvious parallelisms, but also due to the fact that freud had the zohar in his personal library.
overall, given the inherent faults of the theory, the book is okay.
however, the author suffers from the common disease of experts where a familiarity with the subject interferes with clear, concise explanations. when you possess a lot of knowledge on the subject your understanding clusters around mental shortcuts that, to the outside observer, appear to be vague terms that lack semantic differentation from other concepts on the same level. there is also a lot of mention of adam kadmon, metatron, melchizedek, enoch, elijah, messiah and we are never told who is who and why theyre different and important
additionally, he conveniently omits all and any mention of the ontological hierarchy of souls found within the most influential kabbalistic school of the last hundred years - the chabad lubavitz. it is absolutely not trivial that non-jewish souls are there considered to be inferior to the jewish ones as they supposedly originate in the klippot. here, it must be noted that the conception that one is above it all by virtue of pedigree, probably the lowest state of consciousness one can be in. we have observed the effects of it both in the holocaust and the ghaza genocide.
as for the theory itself, i see two downsides that could result in two very real downfalls:
1. constructing trees of life for specific systems can be entirely misleading if we accidentally confuse levels of abstraction, which is exactly what the author does with his schema of "driving". the method is very prone to confirmation bias.
2. more importantly, as much as the book warns against the use of "magic" it still supports its primordial seed: the idea of tikun olam, i.e. repairing the world, which is in direct contradiction with genesis 1:31 ("God saw all that he had made, and it was very good."). here i think kabbalah as a whole and shimon halevi are "lost in the sauce", for they too focused on the ideal of witnessing gods presence through understanding and not so much on compassionate action towards (all) souls.
this promethean path is supported by the conception that man is made in the EXACT image of god and can therefore ascend to the upper three sephirot, which gives him the authority to undertake tikun olam. this is a fundamentally prideful endeavour - a humility before ones neighbour is paradoxically probably the better way to go about it.
an upside to the book are the interpretations of bible passages (genesis and exodus) as metaphors for internal spiritual events. it would be nice if contemporary understandings of "the holy land" consistently focused on its "beriah" nature and not palestine, which is in asiyah.
the reader could also see that its very likely that freuds ideas of the unconscious were probably not original but taken from this tradition. this has been argued by david bakan - not only through obvious parallelisms, but also due to the fact that freud had the zohar in his personal library.
overall, given the inherent faults of the theory, the book is okay.
Read
December 22, 2023"Only those people who see life as more than comfort, power, and status may go on to perceive the inner and upper connections with the superior worlds...It needs to begin with self-knowledge." p.15
"Real morality is not the same as social or tribal custom." p.17
"The allegory of Exodus for the Kabbalah has great personal significance because it relates to the conditions of early life and spiritual development." p. 20
Reincarnation may be part of Kabbalah because a person's task on earth may be difficult to attain in one lifetime.
"Real morality is not the same as social or tribal custom." p.17
"The allegory of Exodus for the Kabbalah has great personal significance because it relates to the conditions of early life and spiritual development." p. 20
Reincarnation may be part of Kabbalah because a person's task on earth may be difficult to attain in one lifetime.
April 20, 2023
Short but useful. Unlike other texts I've come across, this features a great deal of images that aid understanding, as well as multiple uses for the Sefirotic Tree. I'm still not sure of Halevi's position within Kabbalah (considering some of the criticisms he has received) but I didn't find anything personally objectionable within this book. If anything, it was interesting to see an alternative interpretation whereby other spiritualities were examined as part of a wider, complementary whole.
August 12, 2024
An awesome overview of Kabbalah plus exclusive pieces of art on the topic from across the world including explanations for each. The ideal book for anyone who wants to gain an insight on the subject in an easy-to-read way and without delving into volumes.
July 31, 2012
An absorbing introduction to this spiritual perspective on the universe and its creation. Ignore the trappings of Kabbala-lite (wristbands and pop stars) and read this book to open a door into a profound and elaborate philosophy, whether you accept its premises or not. The illustrations are particularly copious and judiciously chosen.
November 8, 2013
The Rabbi is one of the most authoritative Kabbalist in the world. In this book he basically breaks down the essence of Kabbalah and the manifestations of the Sephirot. After all Kabbalah means "hidden" or "secret" knowledge, but the Rabbi will spark your interest and have you searching for the divine inclination.
March 23, 2015
A lot of art/illustration to go with short text based on mystical study of the Divine in Judaism.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews