A very good introduction and available for free,
would be Dion Fortune's The Mystical Qabalah, available
as a pdf online, together with Liber 777 (for comparative religion) and A.E. Wallis Budges
books on egyptology, all available as pdfs.
The ancient Egyptian religion and cosmogony are a very flexible system with a core set of beliefs and gods. Some topics would include: Primary Egyptian Dieties: Amon, Ahtum, Kephra, Ra, Nepthys, Thoth, Isis, Osiris, Horus, Sekhmet, Anubis, Maat, &c.
The ideas of the Egyptian Future Life, the division of
the soul into a shadow, Ka, Ba, &c. and the Egyptian Genisis.
With the Qabalah there are: The Sephiroth, The Planes,
the Division of the soul:
Yechidah - The Self
Chiah - Vital Force
Neschammah - Spirit
Ruach - The Mind
Nephesh - The Animal Soul
And the formation of the Sephiroth into trinities, philosophy
concerning creation and Genesis, duality, positivity and
negativity, potentiality, &c.
But mainly the Qabalah is a way of thinking that incorporates
all ideas, that is, in this mode Love (Unity) understands
all things.
New Age Qabalah incorporates a Hermetic Alchemical system
, obtaining the Sepher Yetzirah and some good books on
Astrology, The Zodiac, Planets, Elements and their attributions
would be advised (These can be found in Liber 777),
and books pertaining to alchemy, Hermes, &c.
The Tree of Life is essentially a structure upon which any
set of ideas can be broken down numerically upon and their
correlations compared.
This Qabalistic mode of reconciliation of fact and belief,
symbol and material, and it's essential formula such as
AGLA, IHVH, AHIH, function as psychological and magical
structures due mainly to their abstractness and certain
numerical mysteries between states of mind, the centers
of the brain and numbers.
There is really no exact point to begin your studies. Learning Kabbalah and Chassidut is much more than just studying the Kabbalistic vocabulary, grasping the many spiritual maps of the spiritual worlds or understanding new and deep ideas. It's about how to recognize, experience and come close to God.Any subject matter or specific topic that you choose will lead you to the same destination. Therefore, you can begin anywhere. There exist a number of introductory texts in English that aim to teach the secrets of Kabbalah and Chassidut. Unfortunately, not all of these texts can be considered reliable, and many are in fact misleading.
The person above gave you some definitions of Kabbalistic terminology. However, when learning this or any other text in English, it should be remembered that the English translation of Hebrew terms can never be exact. Some of the term interpertations hasn't beein accurate and perhaps even quite wrong. While knowing basic terms is a good beginning, as I said, you can start from any place that you like since there isn't an exact point for a beginning.
Let me correct some things and make them more accurate from the previous post while it's not necessary to start with Kaballah, while it's still good for avoiding wrong information...
"Yechidah" ,in Kabbalistic theory is the highest aspect of the human soul corresponding to the first Sephirah Kether, and is included in the neshamah (a basic term to describe the human soul). shortly, it's the spark of divine light at the center of the self...
Nephesh isn't an animal spirit... It's wrong and very inaccurate. It's basically a term refering to the soul itself, generally. It's rather the soul ,emotion, activity of the mind, etc. It's defining the soul from a more emotional aspect, to be accurate.
I think that the rest is fine, it won't be necessary to touch more the terms that were presented previously.
The question is in the first lines of my answer for you. I hope it helps.
Yechidah taken as the Self in the aspect of the Hinduistic
Self, that is, the highest part of a person.
"The less you know about the Self the more you know about it"
Neschammah means the high spiritual self associated with
abstract and spiritual thought, representing potencies very
close to god. God/Vishnu/Amon taken as the center of the
being thus the Self is held distinct but this is not necessarily
wrong.
What I meant is what you meant about Nephesh. The Soul can
be divided thus:
Intellectual Soul - Logic, Reasoning, Recollection
Animal Soul - Emotion, Passions, Hunger, Anger, &c.
I did not intend to imply an "animal spirit", we are all
partly intellectual, animal and vegative.
Neschammah is very often described as the human 'soul' or
'spirit' and I do accept this definition.
But if your looking for a teacher the best place to go
is the source of that fountain from which these ideas
sprang, what I mean is Old Religion and the Zohar.
One thing to remember is nothing is necessarily
right or wrong. The light always reconciles
, opposition implies the want of equilibration.
Science and Religion, Order and Anarchy, &c.
Remember Unity believes all things...
You just corrected your wrong terminology according to my previous post. Lol. Hebrew is a language I've been exploring since I learned to talk, so I know when something taken from it is translated wrongly into English =)
As for the question itself, you can see that I said that nobody can say for sure where you can being since this isn't a determined thing. You may see the explanation above.
As for the Zohar or the "Book of Zohar".... That's something that I really don't recommend for people who just started gaining information about the kabbalah and I really doubt that they'll understand a thing from it.
The Zohar is a collection of commentaries on the Torah, intended to guide people who have already achieved high spiritual degrees to the root (origin) of their souls.
The Zohar contains all the spiritual states that people experience as their souls evolve. At the end of the process, the souls achieve what Kabbalah refers to as the end of correction, the highest level of spiritual wholeness .
To those without spiritual attainment, The Zohar reads like a collection of allegories and legends that can be interpreted and perceived differently by each individual. But to those with spiritual attainment. The Zohar is a practical guide to inner actions that one performs in order to discover deeper, higher states of perception and sensation.
As as I mentioned above, The Zohar was written for people who have already achieved spiritual perception.
The Zohar is built so that only those who achieve a certain spiritual level can benefit from what they read in it. Prior to studying The Zohar , one needs to study other texts that teach how to properly approach the text in The Zohar .
This basically means that this is not for beginner in kabbalah or spirituality. This may be really hard for them to understand, and to be exact it will rather confuse them instead of giving them any good.
If you actually want to rely on books, start with the Torah.
But this outpouring of worlds, the creation of the divine
light, the ideal unity, the acquisition of duality, and
root of equilibrium, all these the Zohar in it's lofty
symbolism contains. There is the Kabalah Denudata "Kabalah
Unveiled" that contains a compact technical resume of the
Qabalah and a commentary on a portion of the Zohar's translation,
a good place to start actually.
Whether or not they'll pierce it's symbolism "at the sweat of their brow" it's a question of technical knowledge and spiritual
revelation and even the interpenetration of worlds. Why stop
such a thing at the warning: "the light is to bright for thine
eyes!" and then again heading the other path "the world is
but darkness and chaos, turn back"
But I do admit I know nothing of Hebrew, that hasn't stopped
me from gaining a smattering of it.
Well let us start with the first book of the Torah (Berashith)
aka Genesis.
In the beginning of creation Elohim created Heaven and Earth,
and darkness was upon the face of the abyss/deep and the
Earth was without form and null and void, and the Spirit
hovering over the surface of the waters.
This seemingly contradictory piece summarizes the worlds of
instability and non existence. Darkness = the nothingness of
the infinite and the Waters = the chaos of darkness.
The Waters of Creation being in darkness began to be influenced
by the Spirit of God.
Who then said:
"Let there be light" and there was light, and Elohim saw that
it was good.
This is the light of existence in contrast to non existence
also called the divine light, at this point the quintessential
fire as so called by Homer was conjured from the chaos
of darkness.
Here is then the Hexad of Creation given by the Pentateuch
1 Light | 4 Celestial Lights
2 Sky, Seas | 5 Birds, Sea Creatures
3 Dry Land, Herb | 6 Man, Beasts
The first triad represents the three fundamental prerequisites
of creations whereas the second triad their direct reflection
and dependents.
God -> Creates Adam -> from his rib Eve
Making Infinite, Abba (the Father), and Aima (the Mother)
the first three persons of the Supernal Triad.
[From the Negative is derived the Positive, the Active
is derived the Passive, From Causes their Effects]
Take the root of life (Hebrew He-Vaw-He of Eve) and the
the masculine Yud or Adam and you obtain Yud-He-Vaw-He,
the name IHVH also erroneously pronounced Jehovah containing
all of manifest creation.
Strip away the Rabbinical lore from the Qabalistic Tree of Life
and you are left with a philosophical and numerical system.
Any average smart person can understand it.
The Sephiroth represent abstract numerical ideas that grow
more and more complex, each springing out of the other,
each holding the next in potentiality.
After obtaining these Ten numerical ideas which are
appropriated to each a Trinity and a Pillar of Negativity
, Passivity and Mildness. There are then Paths attributed.
These paths are according to the nature of the Sephiroth
themselves dealing with their derivation and formation.
Each path unites two Sephiroth to form a compound idea,
the paths leading to a Sephirah also make a Sephirah
a path itself.
As one can easily see there are paths leading from all
the upper Sephiroth to Tiphareth. This is because it
embodies all that came before it into a complete idea
and total reflection of Unity, that is, Unity defined,
change can happen and equally Sol is attributed.
Tiphareth unites the Sephiroth Chesed and Geburah
meaning Mercy and Strength, these are reflections
of Binah and Chokmah and the left pillar is thus
called the Pillar of Severity and the right pillar
the pillar of Mercy.
Go over the bibliography given:
Kabalah Denudata (Kabalah Unveiled)
The Mystical Qabalah
The Qabalah by Papus
Liber 777
Go over these ideas:
The Sephiroth
Negativity and Positivity
Equilibrium
Numerical Emanations
Planes or Worlds
Gematria
The Trinity
Correspondences (gods, colors,
planets, elements, animals, diseases,
Buddhist meditations, plants, astrological
signs, magical powers, modes of intelligence, &c.)
The Fifty Gates
The Five Persons
