Theos-Talk Archives (July 2002 Message tt00074)

Hi all of you,



Here is a little - to me interesting - quote on Cabbala, Jews and Sufis taken from the sufi-related book "The People of the Secret" by Ernest Scott. Ernest Scott. His book is at the sufipublishers (Octagon Press)
http://www.clearlight.com/octagon/ 



The point I am getting at is, that there is a lot of confusion about the Cabbala and the Sufis and their role in the movements of Ancient Wisdom including the most interesting Theosophical movement, where H. P. Blavatsky (HPB) played an important role.



The book starts of with an introdoction by Colin Wilson 
(The Colin Wilson page http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jbmorgan/cwilson.html ) by something like presenting Madame Blavatsky as the one - to which the notion of an 'ancient wisdom' , guarded by hidden custodians or Masters usually is attributed. 

And Dallas here at Theos-Talk recently quoted on the Adepts that their role are: "Assisting all good movements by acting on men from
behind the scenes through mental influence." (WQJ ARTICLES II 53-4)


I am not saying that I agree on all the conclusions in the below made by Ernest Scott, but they are certainly interesting - also when we talk about the Middle East and international political corruption of today:

"Since the Cabbala became available in the West, an immense amount of intellectual effort - and spiritual aspiration - has gone into understanding and applying its principles. 
About most of it there is, however, a suggestion that something is not quite right. Either some key is missing, or the corpus has been corrupted in the transmission. Much Cabbalistic writing and interpretation suggest improvisation. Conclusions are reserved and tentative. Although writers sense the perfection of the whole philosophical machine, they are aware that square pegs, here and there , obstinately decline to fit round holes.

Is the Cabbalistic corpus known to the West somehow corrupt? If this were so, it would not be a theoretical matter.

Something like spiritual nuclear energy is probably involved in higher manipulations of the Cabbala, and it is obvious that if operations are based on an imperfect circuit diagram, errors may be disastrous - and though not visible as such, disastrous nevertheless.

Is there any evidence that the Cabbala of the West is corrupt ? We have seen that the Cabbalistic tradition itself attributes the Cabbala's origins to an almagam. Two seperate though similar expressions of an ancient objective science came together, in a wholly oral transmission, later reluctantly written down in cypher. The version of this known to the West appeared mysteriously around AD 1000. Where did it come from? Incredibly it would appear that it did not originate in a Jewish source at all, but a sufic one. The accepted modern authority on jewry, The Jewish Encyclopedia, delcares that it came from Basra, as one of the tratises composing the Encyclopedia of the Faithful Brethren published 980 !

The stament seems unequivocal. "... The Faithful Brothers of Basra originated the eight elements which form God..." Then perhaps comes the clue to all the square pegs and round holes that have followed: "...changed by a Jewish philosopher in the middle of the11th century into ten".

A present-day Sufi Sheikh is even more explicit:" The Cabbala came from the region of theFaithful Brothers to two places, Italy and Spain. Its system of word manipulation may be derived from and parallel and ancient Jewish teaching, but it is founded upon Arabic grammar... there is no doubt that the Arab study of grammar and the meaning of words is at the base of usage of words in the Cabbala for mystical purposes...The Sufis and the Brethren had produced what they considered to be the most ancient teaching, the secret lore of fulfilment and power and handed it to the Arabized Jews. The Jewish Cabbalists adapted this teaching to contemporary Jewish thinking and the Cabbala of the Arabs became the Cabbala of the Jews and later of the Christians...But the mystical schools of Sufism which never regarded organized book knowledge as a sufficient source, continued to ally practice of the Sufic Rite with the essentials of the old Cabbala teachings..."
And elsewhere: "The alteration of basic Cabbalism (from eight to ten) deprived the Western development of the system of a great deal of its meaning and usefulness. Hebrew and Christian Cabbala litterature later than 12th century is therfore only of partial meaning. This includes all aspects of the Cabbala of the ten elements as distinct from the 'Eight Cabbala'." --- note 6 "



6 Idries Shah, The Sufis, W.H. Allen, London, 1964.



***

It is said later, that:

"Who altered it and why? Did it happen because somebody thought he knew better? Or did it arise by accident in endlees transcriptions? Or did someone fear that too much had been given out and strive to contain the danger by deliberate falsification?

The nature of the alteration was the addition of two elements to the original. This hardly looks like an error in transcription. Yet the nature of the alteration was such as to prevent the "machine" being employed in its entirety.

Examples of post-publication panic are not unknown in the litterature of alchemy, and it would seem likely that a Jewish source, perhaps from a partial understanding as well as a sense of security, invented the Cabbala of the ten elements as a "blind" to draw attention away from the potentialities of the "Eight".



***

The falsification seems to involve at least the majors of Tarot no. 14, 15, 16, and 20. Well according to Idries Shah and Ernest Scott.



***



The book "Encyclopedia of the Faithful Brethren" is also called "Ikhwan El-Safa". (And the original version is not for sale in any bookshop.)
The socalled initiate Adelard of Bath was said to have translated a version of it into latin. He is by some regarded as precursor for Roger Bacon.

At Toledo a lot of translations was being created - and thus creating a diffusion of Arab wisdom and science into the west.
It is interesting to think that the bases of rocket science of today was laid in Toledo, (i.e. spiritually seen). Adelard gave the proof that a toal vacuum was impossible. He is said also to have had the pseudonym of Magister A.

That the Cabbala comes from not only the egyptian historical traditions is clear at least to me and HPB, but also to Ernest Scott.

The above could be compared with what HPB has written in her books and articles. The book "The Secret Doctrine" comes especially to my mind here, when we talk about the Cabbala and the distortions of it. HPB is allright, but later theosophists seems to miss the point that 7 is an esoteric number and 10 is an exoteric one.









from
M. Sufilight with peace and love...





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