Kabbalah, the Harmony of Opposites

Kabbalah, The Harmony Of Opposites; A treatise elucidating bible allegories And the significance of numbers. By W. J. Colville

A General Outline Of Kabbalah.
Inner Significance Of The 22 Letters Comprising The Hebrew Alphabet.
Book Of Concealed Mystery.
Book Of Concealed Mystery Humanity, Spiritual And Physical
The Kabbalistic Use And Significance Of Numbers.
Kabbalistic Views Of The Human Soul, Its Nature And Destiny.
Kabbalistic Doctrine Concerning Cause And Effect (Karma).
The Secret Tradition In Israel. The Zohar. —The Serpent And Fall Of The Angels.
Biblical Traditions Kabbalistically Considered.
Abraham, Melchisedec, Moses And The Law.
Doctrine Of The 3 Temples Of The Messiah.
Kabbalistic Teachings Concerning The Soul, Its Nature And Its Destiny.

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In any attempt to popularize such an essentially mystical work as the Kabbalah the main point to be kept in view is that "Kabbalah'' is a word of far wider significance than is commonly supposed; it is indeed equivalent to "Hermetic'' when that term is employed in a wider than ordinary historical connotation. The Jewish Kabbalah is regarded by many scholars as a work of doubtful age and still more dubious authenticity; it is therefore unwise to attempt to speak dogmatically concerning its origin in our present state of relative uncertainty concerning it. But waiving these particular questions, which rightfully pertain only to scholastic controversy, it is entirely within the scope of a popular treatise to consider the main idea which Kabbalah invariably stands for independently of moot questions regarding the authority or authenticity of any special book or books. Kabbalah Denudata is probably the best known of the Latin works in kabbalistic literature. A fairly good English translation of this work, Kabbalah Unveiled, by Macgregor Mathers, is a familiar volume among students of things generally termed ''occult," and as that treatise supplies a vast amount of curious information in a comparatively simple manner, we shall make many references to that extraordinary volume in the course of the following pages.

It may be said that Kabbalism as usually presented is a form of theosophical teaching employing a Hebrew instead of a Greek or Sanscrit terminology. That is the broadest definition which can well be given of it. Those who take a narrower view regard it is solely an esoteric reading of the Torah or Pentateuch, and many European Jews who prize a mystical tradition find in a study of Kabbalah a complete vindication of the highest spiritual claims ever made for the divine origin of the Sacred Books of Israel.

Students of Swedenborg may readily trace many resemblances between parts of the Kabbalah and Swedenborg's monumental interpretation of the Pentateuch-Arcana Celestia, in which he undertakes to show that there are three distinct senses in which every word of the Torah may be understood, though he by no means confines this three-fold theory of correspondences to the first five books of the Old Testament. The subject is one which exerts great fascination for many Bible students who feel a profound reverence for the sacred text but cannot believe that its claims to veneration are to be found in its external letter, which is often crude and barbarous. Enlightened thinkers cannot bring themselves to endorse the savage idea that the Supreme Being, or indeed that any celestial messengers, would command or even sanction wholesale massacres such as are often attributed literally to divine orders in various portions of the Pentateuch;