There are three ways by which we may account for their sameness: (1) from the intercourse of the Jewish rabbis during the Babylonian captivity with Zoroaster, who, as we have stated, drew his ideas primarily from India; (2) another probable mode of transmission was through the commercial intercourse between India and Egypt. It is not incredible that the scholars of Alexandria should have visited Persia in their quest after the scientific and esoteric learning of the East, nor is it improbable that Zoroaster himself, along with his monarch, King Gushtap, at whose court he resided and taught, should have made a pilgrimage to Alexandria as is stated in the Annals of Ammonius Marcellinus, an ancient Roman historian. This visit would afford opportunity to the sages and learned of that city of becoming acquainted and conversant with the peculiar tenets and principles of Eastern religious philosophy, which eventually found entrance into Palestine; (3) the most probable and likely is that it was conveyed thither by Buddhist propagandists, who inaugurated those secret lodges of esoteric schools or societies such as those of the Essenes and Therapeutae, as they were termed. Buddhism, as is well known, was an offshoot from Brahmanism and its adherents in accordance with the injunctions of their great founder, Gautama, to make known the Good Law, went forth into all the neighboring countries, Tibet, China, Japan eastward, to Syria, Egypt and Arabia westward, founding institutions and communities from which ultimately originated monkery and nunnery in all their different forms and customs. Everywhere, where they penetrated, they made proselytes and inaugurated rites and ceremonies and introduced modes of dress and ecclesiastical ornaments, which afterwards became the accessories in the rituals and worship of Christian churches. Through these Buddhist missionaries the basic ideas and principles of Kabbalah were first implanted in a soil favorable for growth and after development. It was a time when national decay had set in and old time systems of religion and philosophy were being shaken to their very foundations. The reign and regime of the old gods and goddesses and their worship were coming to an end and men's minds were craving after a purer faith, a nobler philosophy, a religion of light and truth, without which there is no real progress, no true progression in society. Kabbalah then sprung forth and manifested its existence, and whilst raising the mind above the phenomenal and temporal, introduced its followers, as did the Mystics afterwards in the dark ages, into a new world of thought, teaching them their true position in the universe and their real relationship to the divine Being in whom and through whom we live and move and have our being. Amidst this general darkness and mental uncertitude, this eclipse of faith and hope, Rabbi Simeon ben Jochai elaborated his philosophy of life, teaching the divinity of man as a derivation, or rather an emanation, from En Soph the "Boundless One," the one unknown yet omnipresent Being.
To whom, no high, no low, no great, no small,
He fills, He bounds, connects and equals all.
Sustains heaven's myriad orbs and all their suns
From seeming evil, still educing good
And better thence again, and better still
In infinite progression.
In doing this, and infusing into the mind and heart of man new and lofty ideas of human existence, Rabbi Simeon has done good service to humanity, and contributed both directly and indirectly to the overthrow of that system of polytheism which for long ages had enervated and depraved the moral life of nations. He lived not in vain, nor did his philosophy perish with him. Cherished and preserved by his followers, it was handed down and became the basis of all esoteric teachings imparted in the secret lodges of the Illuminati, Rosicrucians, and Mystics throughout the dark and mediaeval ages, so that his epitaph may well be "though dead, he speaketh still."
Having now sketched and outlined the theoretical part of Kabbalah as found in The Zohar, we will conclude by giving a short account of the practical, which is usually divided under two heads, viz., the Exegetical applied to the interpretation of the occult meaning of holy scripture, and the Thaumaturgic, comprising rules and methods for producing certain preternatural results in the cure of diseases and the exercise of Magical rites and practices. Exegetical Kabbalah is founded on the assumption as before stated that Moses received from the Lord on Mount Sinai not only the words of the law, but also the key to unlock and reveal the mysteries enwrapped and hidden in each section, verse, letter, point, and accent of the Pentateuch, and that this key has been handed down through wise men who had qualified themselves for its reception. This system of exegesis or explanation is threefold, and arranged under the heads of Gematria,Notarikon, and Temura, each of which we will now describe.
Gematria deals with the numerical value and power of letters, their forms, and sometimes their situation in a word, and is either arithmetical or figurative. In arithmetical gematria each letter has its numerical value. One word whose letters are equivalent to those of another may be accepted as an explanation of that other. For instance, Genesis, ch. I. V. 1, Brashith bara in the beginning created = 1116, also the words, berash hashanah nibra (in the beginning of the year was created) = 1116. Therefore the creation took place in September, in which month the Jewish New Year commences. So in Genesis xlix: 10, the words yabo schilo (shall come to Shiloh), = 358, and meshiach (Messiah) 358. Therefore Shiloh is the Messiah. Figurative gematria is employed in speculations on the letters which (from accident, but as the Kabbalists affirm, from divine design) are greater or smaller, reversed or inverted in the manuscripts of the Hebrew Scriptures. An instance of this occurs in Numbers x: 35. "And when the ark went forward," the letter nun in the word arun (ark) is written the wrong way of turned back to show the loving warning of God to the people, Again, in Genesis xi.: 1, "and the people became as murmurers." The nun in the word mthannanim (murmurers) is also written backwards to show the perverse turning of the people from God, and thus are these two places written in every true Hebrew Bible throughout the world. Another branch of figurative gematria is called architectonical, consisting of mystical calculations on the size, form, and dimensions of the holy temple, the tabernacle in the wilderness, and the future temple described in Ezekiel, of which some very curious and most interesting particulars are given in Sheckard's Bechinath Happerushim (select comments).
Notarikon is used when one letter is made to signify an entire thing or person. The term is taken from the practice of notaries in abbreviating words, though others derive it from notare, to note. Thus a single word is formed from the first or last letters of several words, as in Genesis i.: 3, the finals of the words bars elohim laasoth, which God created and made = amth. Another instance is the word agla, which, with the Tetragrammaton or holy name, was, as the Kabbalists say, inscribed on Magen David or the Shield of David, and is formed by taking the initials of the words atta gibbor leolom adonai (thou art, O Lord, eternally mighty).
Temura signifies permutation. That is, the interchange of letters by various methods, such as that known as Athbash, in which one word is composed that shall answer to another by inverting the order of the letters as they stand in the alphabet, making the last letter Th stand for the first and so answer to A, then Sh to correspond with B, and so on in the subjoined order:
Athbash.
| A, | B, | G, | D, | H, | V, | Z, | Bh, | T, | Y, | C, |
| Th, |