Jake Stratton-Kent wrote:
Hi Jake
I agree with you really - but playing devil's advocate - perhaps magical
covers it -
AFAIK Gershom Sholem's books tended to downplay the sorcerous aspects of
QBL -
and recent commentators have criticised him for going too far -
so there's some sort of distinction between
the magical approach and the meditation/philosophical interpretation??
Not sure how you define shamanism - but I wondered if the myth of
dismemberment and reassemblage that you find in
core shamanic traditions may also play a part in QBL -
isn't there some sort of symbolic body -
primary Adam that QBL seeks to rebuild or perfect?
Vision Questing also seems to be important in early Kabbalistic
descriptions -
and this is also distinctive of shamanism.
Not sure if these are definitive or its all down to literate/
non literate trads as some already suggested.
As to use potions and drugs - there are some who point to
such a tradition in early judaism/gnostic milieu -
isn't there something about Fly Agaric??
Just asking really
bb/93
Mogg
ps good luck with your gig in Glastonbury
> 2009/11/30 A Clanton <[log in to unmask]>:
>
>> Not speaking for Mogg, but perhaps "shamanic" is being used here in the
>> sense of "mystical." If so, "mysticism" might be the better term because it
>> lacks the cultural specificity of "shamanism.
>>
>
> Having ate, slept and breathed the 'Greek shamanism debate' for the
> last few years I believe some elasticity with the term doesn't hurt.
> Cultural specificity aside, climbing a tree and having ecstatic states
> is fairly shamanic, but to my knowledge Kabbalah lacks the 'Orpheus
> motif'.
>
> OTOH the use of gematria by Abraham Abulafia is very unlike the 'word
> association' (or 'cerebral emetic') approach of modern Western magic.
> His writings deploy gematria very extensively not as a tool of
> exegesis but as the basis of an ecstatic technique. His pre-Zoharic
> 'literal kabbalah' was indivisible from 'practical kabbalah', rather
> than a separate (and inferior) discipline. To date Western occult
> writings on the subject give no intimation of this.
>
> ALWays
>
> Jake
>
>
>
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