Kabbalah Made Authentic

Being educated in a topic kinda sucks. It means when people are talking out of their butt, intentionally or mistakenly, you instantly know it. This a problem I’ve run into the past five years within metaphysical, spooky and pagan circles. The incorrect use and teaching of Hebrew Mysticism.

I’m going to write this assuming you’ve never heard of me. My working name is Raven, my Hebrew name is Chavah. I underwent an orthodox conversion years ago. While undergoing the conversion, genealogy is required as part of the process; we found that my mother’s, mother’s, mother’s, mother’s mother’s mother is Jewish. According to Orthodox law, that makes my entire line Jewish. I underwent the conversion ritual anyway, as I was at the end of my studies and that’s a lot of generations; while fully in accordance with Jewish law (halacha), my rabbis and I agreed that it would cover my butt from any naysayers.  I then got married to a Jewish man who grew up in Israel, attended yeshiva in Jerusalem. We have hosted Shabbat dinners, Pesach Seder (typically second night but I’ll digress on why), we’ve taught classes. I was a teacher in an orthodox school for a bit prior to having my own children and staying home with them. In 2019 I began to study folklore from northern Europe out of interest (yes, I admit it was Marvel’s doing) and found that the spirits I have worked with my whole life were in fact the Jotnar. We still honor our Jewish ancestors and that part of our culture and tradition; however, we no longer attend regular shabbat services. We do host yom tovim meals and rituals, typically for other outcasts and fringe Jewish persons. We also lead rituals honoring the Gods of Northern Europe and blend various mystical practices from our cultural and linages. I hope we’re caught up now.

When I began to look at non-Abrahamic mystical practices, I started to run into a lot of references of specifically Hebrew mysticisms… and they were incorrect. It took me off guard when in a tarot 101 level class; there were Hebrew letters on the tarot cards and the instructor talking about the meaning of those letters and their correspondences in Hebrew…. Which it wasn’t. It was incorrect information. This began my dive into where did this come from? The art of the card did match what the instructor was saying and the meaning given to the card also matched, but that was not the correct correlation in Hebrew mysticism. So began my deep dive where I found the Hermetic Order of Golden Dawn and their incredibly antisemitic history. Golden Dawn is essentially the crème de la crème foundation stone modern day ceremonial magic used within many, but not all, Pagan circles. If you’re a witch, Wiccan or Pagan you probably use their work. Very popular books, teachers, mentors, orders and now movies and even memes on social media promote their version of Hebrew mysticism. Trying to dig deeper into where the hermetic order got it from, I find scraps. I do not find anything Jewish or Hebrew. The creators of Golden Dawn did not get their Hebrew information from A Hebrew person. Some, they got themselves from reading what bits of writing they could get ahold of, others they got from non-Jews.  They then turned around, created a religious order using it (among other things) and taught someone else’s culture. They taught it incorrectly. Thus began a long chain of cultural approbation that I now face on a near daily basis when people come to me with questions, when I go into ritual or classes and it’s taught as Hebrew/Jewish mystical practices. To be clear, it is NOT cultural approbation to use the vast majority of Hebrew mystical practices if you’re not Jewish. It IS cultural approbation to not be Jewish and to incorrectly teach Hebrew mystical practices and even more so if you make any amount of money doing so. That is cultural approbation; it harms and kills cultures all the time.

Historically, the work of Golden Dawn has been used to justify the pogroms against Jews in Europe Pre-Holocaust. The incorrect magical sources of Gold Dawn were often cited from fundamentalist Christians as reasons why Jews were dangerous. The blood libel came out of it, in which the rumor was that all Jews participated in ceremonial magic and they needed Christian blood to do so. Christian fundamentalists were (and are) very anti-magic. The misuse of Hebrew symbols in non-Hebrew magic, which was being promoted by non-Jews over Europe, led to the belief that Jews were the magical movement and caused much of the fear and antisemitism that led the Holocaust. The symbols that Golden Dawn approbaited are common symbols of Judaism. They did not uncover some big, hidden mystery. They found elementary school material, maybe middle school. They used it for their high ceremonies and because Judaism has never been a big part of culture in the West and the way Christianity is set up, it seems bigger than it is.

There is a concept that seems to be the norm in Western society. Judaism is Christianity minus Jesus. That is very incorrect. There’s a LOT to Judaism that Christianity doesn’t have. Some you most likely have heard of: the Zohar, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and so on. The Zohar is to Judaism what Cherokee is to indigenous tribes. Yes, it’s real. Yes, it’s there. Yes, it’s mystical/an actual tribe. But it’s used when people don’t know what to reference. 90% of the time that an European-American says they’re “part native” they will say that they’re part Cherokee. Its one of the only tribes most Americans can name. 90% of the time when a non-Jew references nonbiblical writings, it’s gonna be the Zohar. Thanks to Adam Sandler, it’s one of the more well-known writings. The second most popular is the Dead Sea Scrolls. I’ll let you in on what shouldn’t be a secret: the Dead Sea Scrolls are not rare. They were someone’s private library that was hidden during a time of persecution. Every single scroll is a book that you can find at Barnes and Noble right now. If someone tells you “It’s written in the Dead Sea Scrolls” that’s a red flag indicating that they do not know the topic very well. If someone knows the topic well, and are truly quoting authentic writing, they should be able to quote the book it came from opposed to the grouping. The Zohar is one flavor of Hebrew mysticism. The vast majority of what I see being claimed to be in the Zohar, from pagan circles, is not in the Zohar. You can buy an English translation of the Zohar at any major bookstore. There are many other writings and you have probably heard of them — the Talmud for example. Christianity does not have these writings, so even the basic ones seem to be hidden and mystically massive. In fact, they’re common and basic in linage, and in Jewish families. This makes incorrect practices stand out like a sore thumb to someone educated in it; but that same practice seems really cool and significant if you don’t have that education and background.

So, what if you want to learn authentic Kabbalah or other Jewish or Hebrew Mystical practices? Where do you turn? This is not an easy answer and I wish it were. The reality is that it is still a predominantly oral tradition. There are very few resources that teach it without intersecting into dogma, spiritual trauma and racism. Coupled with the fact that every authentic resource has the foundation of that elementary and middle school education I already talked about. In short, there is no good intro to Kabbalah if you’re not already familiar with Jewish teachings. All of them use that foundation. I cannot recommend a single book to truly get started on Kabbalah without years of other education. Any teacher worth a grain of salt will not just take on someone, Kabbalah being no exception. There are a small handful of authentic teachers out there whom have websites and really watered-down books for general concepts. If you want to learn Hebrew mystical practices, you need a mentor. No authentic, mastered mentor will take on someone who isn’t an observant Jew. The vast majority of them will not take on a woman as a student. None of them will take on someone who is openly gay or trans. Any person of color will have a hard time proving they’re Jewish “enough” for the master. Hence the problem. How to use the material talked about in, say, the Zohar is behind a door that is heavily guarded. The creators of Golden Dawn didn’t get behind that door, they merely peeked at the front of the door from across the street.

If you are truly interested in investing the significant time it will take to qualify to learn to Kabbalah, start with the Alef Beit and the Chumash. Learn conversational Hebrew; you don’t need to be super fluent but work on it. It’ll take you one to three years. Read the Chumash cover to cover, twice if you can. No skipping, no saying “Oh I know this story.” read it cover to cover. All thirteen hundred plus pages of it. An actual Chumash, yes, they print them in English. After that, I’d start working on Talmudic law and the writings of the Rambam and Ranban. Another 1-3 years, all while still working on Hebrew as a language. Working on those for at least three to five years, you could have enough foundation to start work elsewhere. If you don’t have that foundation, absolutely no authentic teacher will consider taking you on. Of course, if you’re LGBTQIA or BIPOC, it’s gonna be even more difficult. I am sorry that bigotry is part of the equation, I have not yet found a way around that.

In the meantime, Gold Dawn got it wrong. This doesn’t mean their work doesn’t work. Tarot works. It has an antisemitic (and many other bigotries) history. It’s incorrect with its faux Hebrew teachings, but it did dig the path for itself to work. This is by no means a call to stop using anything Golden Dawn-made or anything that came of it. Teachers incorrectly teaching these things may have useful things to teach; we have to decipher it all. When we want to learn a Hebrew mystic component, we need to find a Hebrew teacher. This doesn’t mean you can’t use it. It doesn’t mean people can’t teach “Hey this works for me.” Just plop a UPG warning on it (Unverified Personal Gnosis) and be clear that it’s not your culture you’re teaching. If you make money from it, donate something to a cause within that culture. The reality is, we’re all problematic. We all have various privileges that have harmed others. We don’t need to be ashamed of ourselves for the real histories we have, we just need to try and be mindful of them.