Kabbalah-of-the-Golden-Dawn-Pat-Zalewski - D Ank Unlimited

2 The Kabbalah ofthe Golden Dawn
teachings but was a type of mysticism that had been held strictly apart
from the main body of Hebrew theology, and as such, it was communicated
only to a select few. This was because the teaching of the "Hidden
or Secret Knowledge" was considered so profound that few could be trusted
with its essence, let alone fully understand its complexity. To express
this in terms that could be readily understood, this mystical teaching was
said to have been allied to the Old Testament, and was applied to interpreting
some of the mote abstract Biblical passages.
As to what this teaching was in its rudimentary form is almost anyone's
guess save that it was mathematical in concept (based on a ten-stage
system) and skeletonic in format. It is likely that it would also have
required a system sufficiently flexible that could be applied equally both
to the Macrocosm (the Universe) as well as the Microcosm (individual
man or woman). At this stage one could safely say that general principles
rather than detailed theories were the Kabalistic concepts of early years
and these were deeply imbedded in the Hebrew religious thought and
ideals of the period.
Little is known of Kabbalistic thought and development between
the time of Abraham and that of Moses. Kabbalistic scholars, such as
Ginsburg, have hinted that Moses reinjected some of the lost or modified
Kabbalistic knowledge of the Egyptians back into the Hebrew teachings
(since Moses was said to be learned in the Wisdom of Egypt) during the
Exodus. The Ten Commandments have been said to have been part of
lost Kabbalistic theosophy and were given directly to Moses from God, so
that the purity of the teaching would be retained. Each commandment
was said to represent a stage of Kabbalistic development.
TRADITIONAL HEBREW LITERATURE
The Talmud
This literature should not be confused with either the Old Testament
or the Kabbalah. It is a composition of the laws and customs of the
Jews in both civil and religious doctrine. Based on a doctrine of interpretations
of the Hebrew Bible, it is divided into two parts, practical and
oral, the latter being the secret tradition of Israel which gave birth to the
Kabbalah. The Talmud can also be further divided into two literature