Doc: re seven laws of Noah and gentiles, see this:
And I believe you misunderstand “God-fearing” It is not being afraid of God, but rather living in awe of the Divine. The Jewish High Holy Days are called “Yamim Norai’m”, from the same word root. It means “Days of Awe”. The English word fear used to contain the notion awe, but nowadays it means mostly “fright”. I should have thought of that before I posted. When you hear “God-fearing” think: in awe of the Divine. You should know that in Kabbalistic/Chasidic philosophy, Awe/Fear and love go hand in hand (see the Ahavah Rabbah prayer in the morning service). According many Kabbalistic teachers, the gate to the knowledge of God is through Awe.
I believe that Zev Steinhardt has made a slight, though common error. The stricture against studying Kabbalah until one is 40, married and well learned in Talmud is rather late in origin, has never really been observed, was never widespread, and was never an enforceable part of halakha. I am not sure why people keep quoting this; it is really a misconception. And again, knowledge of Talmud has almost nothing to do with knowledge of most of the Kabbalah (Tikkunei Zohar aside, if one is to study it properly. The folks whom I know (Jews) who study Tikkunei Zohar know little Talmud)
The AA mentioned above is not Alcoholics Anonymous but Argentum Astrum, Crowley’s Order of the Silver Star.
Also RE “The Wickedest Man in the World”, while is was the tabloid press that put that label on Edward Alexander Crowley, he did revel in it. And of course gave himself a more notorious title “To Mega Therion”- “The Great Beast” aka Mr. 666.
Interestingly, while he was not technically a Satanist (more like a demonologist), he is the grandfather of modern Satanism & at least a great-uncle of Wicca & Scientology, having some dealings with both Gerald Gardner & L. Ron Hubbard.
Why is this religion insulted? If I come up with my weird, outstanding interpretation of christianism, and I’m sincere in my beliefs, these beliefs are exactly as respectable as the traditionnal christian beliefs (which would mean, in my opinion : not much). You can say I’m wrong and misguided, but demeaning my beliefs on the basis that it’s insulting to your religion is certainly actually more insulting to me and my beliefs.
He doesn’t prove anything. He just states that he feels insulted. If I want to tear apart Judaism, reinvent it, and call it the “true” judaism and state that all Jews were just completely misguided until now, why wouldn’t you respect my sincere belief and the sincere belief of my followers? That’s more or less what christianism did. Is the existence of christianism insulting to Jews? If not, does it means that a belief only deserves respect if it is old enough? Are these clueless protestants insulting the long established traditions of the real christians (catholics or orthodox)? What about the mormons? Why should my own interpretation of kabbala be treated any differently?
Why so? They may think the Jews got it wrong or made it unecessarily complicated. They can be totally sincere.
You can’t have it both way. Ask people to respect your well established religion and then going on demeaning other people’s beliefs, pretending that you’ve some sort of copyright on the material. Why stop at the kabbala? Why not pretending to have some specific right about the interpretation of the bible or even about the concept of “god” and states that people coming up with new interpretations are not only idiots but also are insulting you with their stupid beliefs?
All this stuff (the “true” kabbala, the “fake” one, and for that matter any religious belief) deserves exactly the same level of respect. Which is, in my opinion, about as much as belief in UFO abductions. But if you’re point of view is that religious beliefs deserve a great deal of respect, then please extend it to all beliefs, even if they’re completely misguided in your opinion. You don’t have any monopoly on any religion.
Quibble for the quibble, the A.’.A.’. was never named, and people were left wondering if it was the Argentum Astrum, the Atlantean Adepts, etc… There was also confusion due to the fact that Crowley implied there were both the peple who participated in the A.’.A.’. and a general structure of enlightnment (some might say Gnosis) available to all. But, after all, the history of the A.’.A.’. gets tricky…
From what I was aware, Gardner simply swiped his information from G.’.D.’. ritual, which, in turn, had been influenced by Crowley. The Wiccan Reede is defintely stolen from Crowley’s pronouncement on Will, but there’s no reason to assume a personal connection, from what I’m aware. And, cite for Crowley and L. Ron interacting?
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Why is this religion insulted? If I come up with my weird, outstanding interpretation of christianism, and I’m sincere in my beliefs, these beliefs are exactly as respectable as the traditionnal christian beliefs (which would mean, in my opinion : not much).
Claire: I agree “insulted” might be too strong, but I would not agree that if a person comes up with a system of thought that seems to caricature another prior system of thought, the person ought not call what they came up with by the same name.
If, for example, the Kabbalah Centre called its product “The New Kabbalah”, that would be better. My problem with them comes close to the problem of false advertising. Anyone who actually knows Kabbalah knows the the Kabbalah center is a caricature.
Scholars would maintain that there is an intellectual/spiritual phenomenon called “the kabbalah”; the word actually stands for something. I was truly mystified, if I may, when I visited a Kabbalah center class, and kept looking for the beef. What I found was very familiar New Age spirituality (close to Science of Mind, Course in Miracles, etc.), but little Kabbalah. I think they are guilty of duping people into thinking they are really studying this phenomenon called the Kabbalah. I don’t think its right.
If you care about the nature of something precious to you, then you are troubled by pretenders. If one does not care about religion, then one may not care who is pretending to what. But if you have a stake in it, it is a different story.