Theos-Talk Archives (March 1995 Message tl00062)

John Tullis <jtullis@pk.ac.com> writes:

> >In message <1wei2c2w165w@actrix.co.at> theos-l@vnet.net writes:
> > Since the Kabbalah falls squarely under the second object of the
> > Society, I think it should be allowed to remain on the list.
> > Same with any other religion or philosphy.  Perhaps, however, it
> > might be useful to relate it somehow to theosophy eg what HPB
> > said about it, etc.

> >She goes on about it a great deal, both in _Isis_ and the SD.
> >Trouble is, her comments are scattered all over the place.  It is
> >clear she regarded it much more highly than the church :-).
> >
> >Alan.
>
> Related to this, I have read from various sources that HPB
> received a lot of input on the Kabbalah from one of the founders
> of the Golden Dawn (MacGregor? ...its been a while and I'm not
> sure if I remember the name correctly.) It would not have been
> unlikely - the Theosophical Society and the Golden Dawn were
> contemporaries, and a few senior members of each society were
> members of the other.

It just so happens that I have a book out of our not
inconsiderable, but rather jumbled, library called "The Magical
Mason: Forgotten Hermetic Writings of William Wynn Westcott,
Physician and Magus" Edited and introduced by R.A.  Gilbert.
Westcott was one of _the_ founders of the Hermetic Order of the
Golden Dawn.  This book contains a couple of papers on the
Kabalah (one "b" this time, Alan :) which were presented to the
Blavatsky Lodge, and printed in "Lucifer" (in 1891/1893).  He
says in one paper:

" Upon several previous occasions I have had the pleasure of
giving lectures, by special request, upon Kabalistic Philosophy,
because audiences of Theosophists/ I have indeed found that the
modern Theosophist of the school of the late lamented Madame
Blavatsky are found of wandering from the Sanskrit path of Occult
Philosophy into the fields of the Egypto-Hebraic Mysticism of the
Early Kabalah.  Our respected HPB herself has also, in her books,
made constant references to the philosophic and mystic doctrines
of the ancient Rabbinic teachers, and, although we find her
condemning many of their more modern vagaries, yet she implied
the belief that the pure and ancient Kabalah was a Western
offshoot from the Wisdom Religion of prehistoric times..."

(Westcott has a much more approachable style that Waite's, in my
view.)

Anyway, kind of interesting that there was some
"cross-pollination" going on between people in the different
orders.

ASTREA