hermetic qabalah

[insomni4c]

I'm wanting to study Qabalah considering it's importance in ceremonial magic, I think it would really help with solidifying my path and understanding the basis of the ritual work. I've got some of the basic concepts and understand what it is, but I'm not sure where to start with studying the individual sephiroth, would it be better to start from the bottom at malkuth or at kether? Starting from Malkuth and working my way up to Kether seems logical but at the same time Kether is the first emanation on down to Malkuth which is the last so it also seems like a good idea to start with Kether haha, so I'm a little lost as to where the starting point should be.

I'm also wondering what books or websites I should look into. I've just downloaded a copy of Dion Fortune's Mystical Qabalah as I've seen it recommended in various places, I'll start reading through that here soon. And would studying both Jewish Kabbalah and Hermetic Qabalah be beneficial or would it be better to stick with one or the other?

[insomni4c]

Actually reading through this book I've found a lot of my questions being answered, I'm also finding Qabalah to be so much more complex than I initially thought haha. I can see why it would to take years of dedicated study to even scratch the surface of such a complex system. There's so much there to contemplate already, I think just the knowledge presented here is gonna keep me busy for awhile.

[elderos]

Starting from Malkuth seems logical but in every source I've read starting from Kether seems to be the common practice. The reason for this is that to start from Kether you gain better philosophical knowledge of the Supernal Triad, and that relationship emnates all the way down(up?) to Malkuth and then Kether again. Just today on Reddit /r/occultism I saw this awesome correspondence diagram of the Triad...
http://i.imgur.com/RW4oZPu.jpg

As for books, there are two I highly recommend. The Mystical Qabalah by Dion Fortune is an excellent read, and a second book which I recommend to read after (or concurrent) with that is the Garden of Pomegranates by Israel Regardie. Furthermore, I'd suggest 777 by Aliester Crowley as a good reference book to have on hand for various astrological/alchemical/magickal correspondences. All this is Hermetic Qabalah which emerged shortly after Regardie, Fortune, and Crowley left to form their own fraternities I believe.

I don't know much about the traditional Jewish Qabalah, but from my impression it is much more oriented toward laws and codes much akin to those of the Torah.

Also when you have a chance, get the Zohar and the Sephir Yetzirah which are the two holy Rabbinical texts that are referred to the most in Qabalah philosophy.

EDIT: I also want to add that my favorite way to practice getting familiar with the sephirah and paths is by drawing the Tree of Life often, or sorted index cards. I like to think of the Qabalah as a filing cabinet to sort your occult knowledge in... that's why it's so fantastic. Everything from plants, colors, spirits of the Goetia, planets, stones, plants, incenses, Tarot and the days and hours themselves can be cataloged in the cabinet. Those can then be used in rituals in a way that is both meaningful and believable for your practices. (This is actually the first thing suggested to practice by Dion Fortune's Mystical Qabalah)

Hope I helped!

[insomni4c]

Thanks for the reply

Reading through Mystical Qabalah has been really giving me a good introduction to this, and I'll check out the those books for sure. Usually I just download pdf's ( mystical knowledge shouldn't cost you any money anyways right? ;P ), but I think I'll work on getting ahold of a physical copy of 777 since it seems like one I'd actually want to have on hand and be able to leaf through. Thanks for the recommendations.

I've been drawing out diagrams and was actually thinking about using some index cards, since that already seemed like a good way to get started studying this.

[Cybernetic_Jazz]

I don't know if there's such a thing as a one-stop for Hermetic Qabalah and I still have a lot to learn about it. As an extension of the Dion Fortune Material, Gareth Knight's 'A Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism was a wonderful read. It all of course depends though on whether you accept or are interested in in Golden Dawn attribution of the paths to the 22 major trump of the tarot - if so Basil/Gareth does a wonderful job of covering the details on that and even supplying raw materials for pathworking.

[insomni4c]

I agree that there's probably no one stop text, so I'm trying to study a variety of perspectives. That's another one I'll have to check out, I've been curious about the use of the tarot symbolism on the tree, I've been thinking about getting my hands on a tarot deck as well.

Thanks for the recommendations you guys, it was such a pain trying to figure out what to study before checking out this forum.