Reddit mentions: The best kabbalah & mysticism books

>I would also like to start 'working' with a higher entity. I'd like to make contact with my HGA, but am not adept enough to perform The Abramelin Operation (seems very scary).

The Abramelin Operation is a bit dated and a lot of people (not all though) use Crowley's Liber Samekh Ritual to establish contact with the HGA. It's supposed to be performed astrally several times a day. Lon Milo Duqette wrote a clearer explanation than Crowley did of how to perform the ritual in his book A Handbook of the Rituals of Thelema. However, that's not usually the first step in contacting the HGA. In Crowley's system, a person must :

1. Gain control over the body of light and rising on the planes. This is often assigned due to the fact that, as I already said, the ritual is not suppose to take place on the physical plane, rather in the astral one after rising on the planes.
   
   
2. Master Asana and Pranayama. Asana is being able to sit completely still in a single position without moving a single muscle for a prolonged period of time and Pranayama is breath control. This is because the HGA is often seen as your subconscious mind and these meditative practices are necessary to be able to quiet your conscious mind so that you may better hear and listen to your subconscious. If you'd like to read more about this, I'd recommend Liber ABA
   
   
3. Master ceremonial magick techniques (i.e. Star Ruby, Star Sapphire, lesser rituals of the pentagram and hexagram, greater rituals of the pentagram and hexagram, etc.) and develop a better understanding of ritual. This is obviously assigned due to the fact that in order to successfully perform a ritual to invoke the HGA, you need to have an understanding of ritual and ability to do it.
   
   
4. Perfect the art of Bhakti. Bhakti is complete devotion to a deity. It includes such things as devoting all acts (i.e. eating, drinking, sleeping, working, breathing, etc.) to the chosen deity, developing a mantra for the deity and reciting it constantly in your head every second of the day without stopping, developing an invocation to the deity, performing ritual service for the deity several times in a 24 hour period including the middle of the night, modeling yourself to behave like the chosen deity, etc. This is necessary as it helps develop the one-pointed focus and devotion needed to successful invoke the HGA. If you'd like, you can read more about this in Liber Astarte
   
   >I would love suggestions from you all regarding anything that would help me practice low-level ritual work!
   
   I'd recommend trying out
   
   The Star Sapphire
   
   The Star Ruby
   
   The Greater Ritual of the Hexagram
   
   The Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram
   
   The Solar Adorations
   
   The Threefold Eucharist
   
   The Mass of the Pheonix
   
   The Form of Hoor-pa-kraat
   
   >Are there any other ways to do this? I feel an affinity toward Angelic forces and have a keen interest in Enochian but am unsure where to begin.
   
   If you're looking to get into Enochian magick, (which I would highly recommend; it's one of my favoritae systems of magick) I'd recommend reading Enochian Magick in Theory and Enochian Magick in Practice by Frater Yechidah.
   
   >I have stayed away from Goetia thus far and would like to focus a little more on white magick (not because I think Goetia is 'wrong'; its just not for me right now). However, I am curious if The Key of Solomon would provide any use for someone wanting to learn about white magic? Am I correct in stating that the astrological pentacles are of use for the magus to use at their will?
   
   I wouldn't classify the Goetia as black magick. Demons in the occult are not the same as demons in Abrahramic religion. In fact, I (as well as others I have talked to) have noticed that the Enochian angels are very similar in character and personality to the Goetic demons. I would also not characterize the Key of Solomon pentacles and sigils as black magick.
   
   But to answer your questions; yes, anyone could use the pentacles (with or without conjuring any of the Goetic demons; the consecration rite for them does not include any evocation, just a blessing) and see results.
   
   As for general books I would recommend to a beginner:
   
   The Chicken Qabalah of Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford by Lon Milo Duquette
   
   the Golden Dawn by Israel Regardie
   
   The Mystical and Magical System of the A .'. A .'. by James A. Eshelman
   
   777 And Other Qabalistic Writings by Aleister Crowley
   
   Gems From the Equinox by Aleister Crowley and edited by Israel Regardie
   
   
   
   

In some ways you could still say I'm a Gnostic, but I'm also an atheist. I didn't used to be. I used to be really into religion. I studied various religions for 10 or so years, and I believed that there was a link between them all, some half-understood glimpse into a supernatural world. Initiation never ends, though, so one day I came to see the emptiness in that as I'd seen emptiness in everything else. There's truth in the metaphors of mysticism, but it's not truth about the world, it's truth about human beings and what they are.

Ein Sof is the unmanifest complete nature of "God", right? Well really that's just your deepest self, the part that isn't your petty emotions and worldviews, the part that fuels the Logos of the manifest self, yet sits and watches in stillness as the storm churns around it. Identification of self with thoughts is deficiency, as Sophia, who is wisdom, tries to understand the world without that concept of a quiet inner self, but of one that partakes in emotional turmoil fully and feels as though that's where it is, bringing about a false self. This is the Demi-urge and its Archons, our controlling and hostile self-imposed restrictions and our deficient interpretation of our relationship to the world. Gnosis is a realization of unity, not with the deficiency, but with the Pleroma and Logos, the manifestation of Ein Sof. It's identification with that stillness and quietness at the heart of the self, the place that the storm doesn't touch. Whether or not there's more to that stillness is, well, open to interpretation.

Some good books to take a look at, if you want to know about the cosmology of Gnosticism, are Gnosis of the Cosmic Christ by Tau Malachi, and On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead by Gershom Scholem. Also, really, if you just want a basic outline of some of the cosmology, take a look at Wikipedia. Look at the capitalized letters in these last couple of posts and see what they have to say about them. As far as just addressing the ideas, they're pretty good.

Really, though, cosmology isn't that important, what's important is what the cosmology is trying to reflect. You should also read the story of Krishna and Arjuna on the battlefield, which is in the Bhagavad Gita, and basically the entirety of the Tao Te Ching. The Heart of Understanding by Thich Nhat Hanh is another good read that gets into some of this stuff that's really the core of the point of it all.

The thing is, a lot of this stuff is non-verbal. You can learn as much from extended periods of mindfulness meditation as you can from reading about it, and, really, if you're going to actually understand it, you have to do some work within yourself. If you can't ever differentiate the cloud of your emotions from the self that you are, you're not going to see the sign posts in the text in front of you. Eventually their shape might sort of point you in the right direction, though, and that is, presumably, the hope. Like a Zen koan, it's a finger pointing at the moon. Try not to get caught up in the finger. Along that line of thinking, take a look at the introduction to Magick in Theory and Practice by Aleister Crowley, but first, read this quote from Liber O.

>In this book it is spoken of the Sephiroth and the Paths; of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and many other things which may or may not exist. It is immaterial whether these exist or not. By doing certain things certain results will follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophic validity to any of them.

There are many ways to interpret the things Crowley says. He definitely seems to have had some delusional periods in his life, but he is an excellent representation of a finger pointing at the moon.

Personally, I think religion needs to fade into the darkness of history and take as much ignorance and woo with it as possible. There are, however, valuable transmissions of non-verbal information going on, but I think they can be secularized. Crowley managed to get his students to play with the stuff while supposedly not expressly believing in its literal validity or the literal truth of the cosmologies related to it, so there ought to be other ways of doing that.

Anyway, that's just me. I couldn't tell you whether most Gnostics today or ~300CE believed the cosmology literally or believed it in the context of their experience of themselves and their connection with the world. I don't know of any studies regarding it. I'm pretty sure there aren't that many Gnostics.

I don't know of any services or anything. I certainly don't go to any. If you have any questions about Gnosticism or whatever you can certainly ask, though. It seems that I still enjoy typing about it.

Probably not here though, because this has nothing at all to do with physics.

I'm not claiming to know all counterfactuals, but it's safe to say few of us would be Noachides without the efforts of Rabbi Schneerson:

>The Rebbe keenly understood that our every action is part of a bigger picture. Every good deed we do brings humanity closer to the ultimate goal, the era of cosmic perfection and universal awareness of G‑d, known in Judaism as the time of Moshiach. The Rebbe spoke tirelessly about this time, demonstrating how the world is heading closer and closer to this special era and how every person can actualize it by increasing in acts of goodness and kindness.

>From the moment the Rebbe arrived in America in 1941, his brilliance at addressing himself to the following ideal became apparent: He would not acknowledge division or separation. Every Jew — indeed every human being — has a unique role to play in the greater scheme of things and is an integral part of the tapestry of G‑d's creation.
For nearly five of the most critical decades in recent history, the Rebbe's goal to reach out to every corner of the world with love and concern has unfolded dramatically. A Brief Biography

*

The Rebbe on The Seven Noachide Commandments**

I can recommend Bringing Heaven Down Earth. Tzvi Freeman studied with the Rebbe for 20 years. (Freeman is also the author of Heaven Exposed and the genius behind Kabbala Toons with Rabbi Infinity. If you're obsessed with Cosmological arguments, and what normal person isn't, there is something very deep about the 5-part Isifier Series.)

> In case some don't know, Religious-traditional Jew or not a Jew is still a Jew forever, that's what the covenant is about,

I recognize this point of view, though I do not necessarily subscribe to it myself. I say "necessarily", because I'm not intrinsically opposed to the idea either, but I suspect I use these terms quite differently from you.

>but I understand you got the impression i a speaking from a religious point of view because many Christians see Christianity as a faith in Jesus and religion, these seals mix some gospel stuff too which does not work with Judaism, nit even messianic texts.

Again, it's a lot more helpful to describe my outlook on faith as pragmatheism than anything else. I believe in what works. From this point of view, there's no difficulty in syncretizing various traditions even though their original adherents wouldn't be able to make it work like that for themselves. To each his own.


> It may upset some rabbis and provoke curiosity if they see anyone sharing what iam with other nations who may be seeking to use the light from the Jewish nation to bond, communicate and pack with unseen beings hashem banished during creation billions of years ago,

I'm very happy that you're willing to have this conversation, and I hope the downvotes won't put you off. Our perspectives may vary, but we've got plenty to learn from each other, and I wish I could be more helpful in answering your questions.

> Th g-d of Israel is one and everyone's g-d and creator, those who use hashems names to conjure or invoke unseen beings who where banished are using the names in vain, especially if they are Christian and no way around during solomons time, it would mean a pagan is trying to trick hashem or the spirit into a service., and it was the Arabs who wrote stories about Solomon and his ring blending it all with Arabian nights, the gienie in the bottle etc, Arabs believe these spirits get burned for coming near a living person (especially ones thousand of years old) and so they will only do so as long as that person proves them they lower the grace of hashem, his angels and names to their level, some times even mocking, sacrificing something or sharing their own blood to pack or connect with them.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm taking the Holy Names in vain through my practices, but I'm not worried about it. My approach to these names and the Hebrew alphabet is quite Hermetic (or Chicken-ish, if you will), and they work just fine without the dogmatic framework of Judaism. This video gives a good intro to the perspectives I'm describing, please forgive the blatant heresy.

> But since they are banished it's called praying using hashems name in vain.
> But if your a Jew you talk to hashem and ask permission which is how it should be done, that's the point of the names of hashem, but I guess depending on what someone is asking it's gonna be hard to go that route,
>
> Anyway, so the Latin text and other esoteric writing on Solomon's seals was contributed by who?

I wish I could answer your final question. I believe the texts are traced back to the 1500s, but I'm in no way sure. There are people frequenting this subreddit that are way better versed in the Solomonic tradition than I am, Here's hoping some of them will chime in.

^^Paging ^^dr. ^^/u/Lucifereus!

Well, not too Orthodox, but ones I have on my ereader which I liked...

• Souls on Fire: Portraits and Legends of Hasidic Masters by Elie Wiesel. It's a really easy and engaging read. It doesn't go deep enough to get dry; which is either good or bad depending on what you're after. I worked at an old, historic building in the middle of nowhere. This was a great book to wander through in the woods.
  
  
• Tales of the Hasidim by Martin Buber. Buber goes deeper than Wiesel. It can be a little terse. Most of the book contains Hasidic stories presented in a few paragraphs. Buber was, first and foremost, a philosopher and scholar. He loved Hasidism and Judaism, but his approach was not Orthodox.
  
  
• Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion by Rabbi Joshua Trachtenberg. So, I adored this book. It explores (primarily) Jewish folklore around 1000 CE among the Rhineland Jews (Hasidei Ashkenaz). This community put forth work of the so called "Practical Kabbalah". The book examines Medieval Jewish beliefs in demons, angels, invocation magic, ghosts, amulets, and more. What I found interesting was that the approach was always very Jewish. In otherwords, they did not believe there existed a duality between the Devil with demons and God with angels. God remained supreme and One over all else in their superstitions. This book also traces some Jewish practices to their superstitious origins and contains many fascinating stories. It can be dry though. It's also available (legally) for free online!
  
  
• EVERYTHING BY DANIEL C. MATT. He's at the forefront of academic study of Jewish mysticism. He also translates beautifully. He's currently (and likely until the end of time) creating a new English translation of the Zohar. He has numerous short books containing brief translations of mystical Jewish texts. The Essential Kabbalah was short, sweet, pretty, and fun.
  
  
• The Jew in the Lotus by Rodger Kamenetz. In 1990 the first known meeting between a Jewish delegation and the Dalai Lama occurred. The delegation consisted of rabbis from different denominations with different views. They each present different aspects of Judaism. Kamenetz chronicles the historic event, but in a personal way. Through being a part of this endeavor, he learned about Buddhism and rekindled his connection to Judaism.
  
  
• The Golem and the Jinni: A Novel by Helene Wecker. BUY THIS BOOK. It's fiction (unlike the others). It's an immigrant story told using magical realism. A golem finds herself in the Jewish district of New York City in 1899. Meanwhile, a jinni is trapped in human form in the Syrian district. They are each new to the world in communities new to America. It's a beautiful book.

Hm... lots to unpack here.

​

First - I hope it is apparent to you that my line of questioning isn't an attack on you.

​

Second - how familiar are you with the three initiates? Paul Foster Case in particular is no phony. He is the founder of the hermetic esoteric school, Builders of the Adytum, and he wrote a great many books on esoteric subjects which speak to his great knowledge of ancient philosophy, including but not by any means limited to what you consider to be Hermeticism. In particular, he wrote some great books on alchemy which are very much in line with Hermetic thought - specifically, I am thinking of this book: https://www.amazon.com/Hermetic-Alchemy-Science-Practice-Golden/dp/0982352115

​

So, let's be clear - your notion that they are false is unsubstantiated by the facts.

​

Third - if you agree that the subject matter is timeless, then why do you arbitrarily draw a line in the sand and say that the "core" texts are the only texts? It is obvious to me that there has been a current of thought which has developed these universal ideas and it was around long before your canonical Hermeticism and continues to this day uninterrupted. So if you are going to say that true Hermeticism ended at some point in the past, you will have to make a substantive argument as to why those works were legitimate heirs to the name of Hermeticism and certain other ones weren't.

​

Is Rosicrucianism not Hermetic, for example?

​

And now that I think of it, are you aware of the circumstances which contributed to the rise and fall of Hermeticism as a spiritual movement? Ironically both the rise and the fall can be attributed to something which is mirrored in your view: Hermeticism became popular because it had the air of "ancientness" to it and spoke to a then-unconscious intuition that spirituality and gnosis had existed in a meaningful way long before the Christian era.

​

When it was later revealed that the authors had been (relatively) contemporary (at the time -- not for us) and that the authors had borrowed Hermes' name in an attempt to lend their philosophies some credence, the movement lost all the credibility it had falsely accumulated in the eyes of the would-be seekers of the time. But this had no bearing on the validity of the philosophy.

Magick is for all, I would recommend working on the kabbalah for a start, or reading the liber 4, not necessarily in that order, maybe try liber 4 and then A Garden of Pomegranates by Israel Rgardie and Mystical Kabbalah by Dion Fortune. The Hardcover edition of Liber 4 is a great edition. I have it and it is amazing, and not as complex as most of his writings. This book has a lot of appendixes too, that helps. Having the Thoth Tarot deck and the Book of Thoth and studying its correspondencies with the tree of life is very helpful too.

Fascinating readings anyway.

About what he is in relation to mankind, better judge yourself from his writings.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-Thoth-Egyptians-Equinox/dp/0877282684/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_z

http://www.amazon.com/Thoth-Tarot-Deck-Aleister-Crowley/dp/1572815108/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1422560601&sr=1-1&keywords=thoth+tarot+deck


http://www.amazon.com/Magick-Liber-ABA-Book-4/dp/0877289190/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1422560336&sr=1-2&keywords=magick

http://www.amazon.com/Garden-Pomegranates-Skrying-Tree-Life/dp/1567181414

http://www.amazon.com/Mystical-Qabalah-Dion-Fortune/dp/1578631505/ref=pd_sim_b_4?ie=UTF8&refRID=0TNF7RPG3Y67DX4G00QH

The Mystical Kaballah by Dion Fortune is probably the best book on the subject, if you are looking to learn directly about the tree of life.

From there I recommend looking further into kaballah through the tarot (literally the tree of life sorted into cards), Liber 777 and Liber ABA (and really most of the thelemic works) by Crowley, and maybe some less "religious" sources, like The Chicken Kaballah..

Above all, I recommend trying to work with the model and apply it to yourself and your meditation. That is the most important thing; the tree can be applied to pretty much anything, and Liber 777 is a great starting point for correspondences for home-made sigils, seals, and rituals :)

Hey! I've been reading a bit about Rebbe Nachman. What is the general opinion on him? (sorry if this is ignorant)

Also, I want to pick up some books by him, they look really interesting!

https://www.amazon.com/Outpouring-Soul-Rabbi-Nachmans-Meditation/dp/0930213149

https://www.amazon.com/LIKUTEY-MOHARAN-Rebbe-Nachman-Breslov/dp/0930213920

Has anyone read either of these? (For context I'm a Modern Orthodox 19 yr old slowly becoming more observant again and I've been buying a decent amount of books, also feel free to recommend anything!) Thanks!!!

Edit: I absolutely love the fact that this subreddit exists. Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to reply!

It sounds like you are wanting some usable ritual work. Some books that do a good job of easing you into ceremonial magic are:

• Modern Magick - A good primer, from beginner to more advanced work.
  
• By Names and Images - Covers the basics, but get more advanced more quickly. Gets into Skrying more quickly.
  
  And to lesser extents
  
  
• Middle Pillar - Covers the basics of Qabalistic philosophy
  
• Garden of Pomegranates - Gets a little more advanced into Qabalistic Philosophy with some good Skrying "how to" as well, such as testing entities, visuals, etc.
  

Tool released a band picture with Shipibo designs overlaid. There is no question that they are an ayahuasca/DMT band.

Now, Dr. Strassman's recently published book DMT and the Soul of Prophecy dissects the Old Testament in order to conclude that DMT could have and likely did inspire the prophets. More, Dr. Strassman concludes that the use of DMT should produce contemporary prophets, as Hebrew prophecy is our universal, innate potential. Dr. Strassman's scientific breakthroughs have inscribed into every soul the faculty of Hebrew prophecy.

Now, the most ambitious thing the band could attempt to top themselves after the smash hit AEnima is Hebrew prophecy. Compare “Jambi“ to John 1:51, itself quoting Jacob's Ladder: "[Y]ou will see 'heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on' a human being [the Son of Man]." Tool opened up heaven to crown a Son of God. It is unreasonable for me not to throw my hat into the ring, and I am the only one with a hat in the ring.

Check out Rav Ashlag's Wisdom of Truth also which is universally lauded.
https://www.amazon.com/Wisdom-Truth-Essays-Kabbalist-Yehuda/dp/1571896058

Also listen to what both sides have to say and judge for yourself! Walk into the London Centre and you be the judge.

I have been to the most "highly esteemed" Jewish organizations and studied kabbalah and the Kabbalah Centre teachers are truly in a class of their own as far as depth of wisdom and knowledge (which helps explain a lot of the jealousy and lshon hara).

> About number three: to me it's quite obvious animal abuse was rampant before the flood : otherwise there wouldn't be a Noahide commandment specifically against it.

I'm not sure how that follows, but either way our own supposition is insufficient to determine our personal conduct. We need to conduct ourselves through the lens of halacha and mesorah.

Nobody is saying you have to eat meat - although there is a very strong case to be made that you should on Shabbos and Yomim Tovim, and go and ask any mekubal about eating fish at each Shabbos meal. Furthermore, veganism is explicitly not possible in a Torah-observant lifestyle. You need tefilin, mezuzos, and Torah scrolls. I guess in theory you could just not wear any garments that require tzitzis, but that would be inadvisable, to say the least.

In the end, veganism and even vegetarianism are not Torah values, and while this doesn't exclude them from permissibility, it does mean you can't let your desire to be vegan or vegetarian override your Torah observance.

For a sincere (and relatively pro-vegetarian) look at vegetarianism and animal welfare from a Jewish perspective, please see The Vision of Eden by R' Dovid Sears, who is himself a devoted Breslover chosid.

As for whether there will be sacrifices in the third Temple, see Rambam's M"T Hilchos Melachim 11:1, which is very clear. Perhaps your confusion is arising from the fact that he wrote elsewhere that the reason we offer sacrifices was only because other nations did as well, so we were commanded in a way that was what we were used to - but the source for this is a sefer which Rabbenu explicitly forbid us to study, so I don't think too much stock should be put there.

It does seem that Rav Kook wrote in one place that there would be no animal sacrifices in the restored Temple, but he writes elsewhere that the more correct view is the one in accordance with halacha as per the Rambam.

I cannot speak for Enochian, as I've never practiced it. If you're interested in Angelic Magic, there are many classifications of Angelic beings outside of Enochian.

I recommend starting with a book called "The Kabbalah and Magic of Angels"

https://www.amazon.com/Kabbalah-Magic-Angels-Migene-González-Wippler/dp/0738728462

From there you might wish to explore the works of The Gallery of Magick.

https://galleryofmagick.com

Or for another approach to studying and practicing the Angelic Arts there is Archan Publishing.

http://www.archan-publishing.com

And that only scratches the surface, however these are very much sentient celestial forces and they will and so answer when called.

An important observation I've made with most Angelics, they are more willing to help those who are willing to help themselves.

Your intuition is correct. The purple, blue & yellow chakras are thought to be better represented as dualistic energies under this system, that's why they appear between two nodes. As for the origination of this stuff, I'd say the jury's still out on that one. Everyone claims something different... there's reason to think it originates in Egypt, but when you get into how it interfaces with Tarot and pathworking, I'm inclined to think it has a lot of influence from the native religions of the British Isles & surrounding European cultures. If you are interested in doing a little reading, I'd strongly suggest this book. It's pretty down-to-earth as far as this stuff goes.

I just mentioned it in my big check-in post in the Lesson 2 topic, but thought I should give you a personal recommendation for Lon Milo duQuette's Chicken Qabalah. He's got a nicely tongue-in-cheek humor about the whole thing which really helped me feel more comfortable with it all.

There are several books on Egypt that are well worth your while, including (in no particular order):

Serpent in the Sky: The High Wisdom of Ancient Egypt by John Anthony West.

Egyptian Magic by Florence Farr.

On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans and Assyrians by Iamblichus, trans. by Thomas Taylor.

Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World by Gerald Massey.

The Book of the Dead trans. by E.A. Wallis Budge.

I hope that helps.

I'm not sure about essential to every occult library (and I realize some of these aren't necessarily considered primarily 'occult' texts), but here are a few I've found useful:

• The Golden Dawn - Israel Regardie
  
• Morals and Dogma - Alfred Pike
  
• Modern Magick - Donald Michael Kraig
  
• The Secret Teachings of All Ages - Manly P. Hall
  
• Initiation into Hermetics - Franz Bardon
  
• Sefer Yetzirah - Aryeh Kaplan
  
• The Secret Doctrine - Madame Blavatsky
  
• Liber Null & Psychonaut - Peter J. Carroll
  
• The Book of Thoth - Aleister Crowley
  
• Undoing Yourself with Energized Meditation and Other Devices - Christopher S. Hyatt
  
• Prometheus Rising - Robert Anton Wilson
  
• Enochian Vision Magick - Lon Milo DuQuette
  
• The Chicken Qabalah - Lon Milo DuQuette
  
• Brain Magick - Philip Farber
  
• Info-Psychology - Timothy Leary
  
• Beelzebub's Tales to his Grandson - George Gurdjieff
  
• Initiation, Human and Solar - Alice Bailey
  
• The Red Book - Carl Jung
  
• Principia Discordia - Malaclypse the Younger

This book by Israel Regardie (a disciple of Crowley) is the best introduction to the Hermetic Qabalah which includes astrology and other correspondences. The stuff by the Ciceros is very good as well.

Qabalah is great. But I recommend you read some work by Alan Watts first. He takes the greatest lessons the Qabalah has to offer and distills them into ideas so simple and self-evident, you'll be amazed that you never realized it before. His best works are "The Book" and "This Is It."

Then, if you still want to study Qabalah (you should), start here: http://www.amazon.com/Chicken-Qabalah-Rabbi-Lamed-Clifford/dp/1578632153

"...for if ye take but one step in this Path, ye must arrive inevitably at the end thereof."

/u/casabolg, generally the outlook toward other religions in Kabbala is the same as it is in most of Judaism. However, there is also a strain of Kabbalistic thought on this question, unique to it as a Jewish genre which is distinctly universalistic in its approach to other religions. If you're interested in it: check out the work of R. Elie Benamozegh, specifically his Israel and Humanity. In it, he puts forward an understanding of certain Kabbalistic ideas that leads to seeing all religions as having shared truths and that all are manifesting the same underlying reality in different ways.

In contemporary Jewish thought, R. Adin Steinsaltz has picked up on a lot of R. Benamozegh's ideas and integrated them into his own theological discussions, such as The Thirteen Petalled Rose

Crowley's book is not an easy starting point, more of a reference work. As usual, Lon Milo Duquette offers a much easier starting point.

But it is also worth keeping in mind that "the occult" isn't really a thing. There are plenty of hidden things out there, and there are plenty of techniques for making sense and nonsense of the clues that may or may not point there. But there isn't a grand hidden conspiracy of great knowledgable masters who communicate via arcane symbols and snatch aircraft out of the sky.

Or is there?

Much better specific question. :) Tarot and Kabbalah can each stand alone without the other. They also can be potent tools for deepening understanding of each other. The major arcana are said to exemplify the paths between the sephiroth on the tree of life. Understanding how the sephiroth on each end of a path relate can shed light on the cards, and vice versa. It's kinda like a two way street. That said, the scale between the two is like a bike and a car. Both can take you places. Kabbalah can go 'further' faster, but is much more complex and takes more fuel (will) to get there. Neither is 'better'. Just different.

A good intro level book on Kabbalah is ["Qabalah: A Magical Primer"] (http://amzn.com/1578632110).

Also, ["The Tarot And The Tree Of Life"] (http://amzn.com/1161499156).

Chicken Qabalah by Lon Milo DuQuette is supposed to be pretty good, never read it though: http://www.amazon.com/Chicken-Qabalah-Rabbi-Lamed-Clifford/dp/1578632153

Anyone have an ebook to share?

Not an uncommon story. The occult is so alluring because it hints at truth. I had a similar experience to find divinity. While I did play DnD a little bit, that's not what got me. I found a primer on magick and Qabbalah (not kabbalah, the real stuff. we pronounced it quaballah to differentiate.) Actually, after a little googling I found it. I had read Daniel C. Matt's Essential Kabbalah already, but my knowledge of Judaism was way too lacking at that point to get it. I dived head first into the occult and am still conversant in it. I read Aleister Crowley, collected Tarot cards, astral projection, some scary meditations, and even learned to read and cast runes. I have an Encyclopedia on all things Golden Dawn. I could still sit down and draw up a chart that had all the elements, planets, signs, and their associations from memory. The more I read, the more I critiqued. Everything in Western Occult can be boiled down the the tree of life. I found that you could cut through 5 layers of symbology as just symbols of symbols and, how I explained it, just getting lost and going in circles of symbols. If you cut through all the shit, there's a very very simple base. The more I studied the tree of life, the more I realized that the reasons for all those extra layers of symbols is to avoid having to deal directly with the tree of life, and I realized that I wasn't prepared at all to figure it out. I wasn't conversant enough in Judaism to understand the symbology. So I started studying Judaism and unlearning everything I learned in the Occult. I wasn't anywhere near approaching considering being practicing. This was all just intellectual exercises. But I learned something about Judaism. The deeper you go, the closer you get to getting somewhere. There's a truth at the bottom. With the occult, you learn the other way. You start with the tree of life, and learn it by building symbols on top of symbols and the deeper you go, the further away from the truth you go. It's all just wheel spinning.

All of this conversation is based on the Otz Chiim/Tree of Life from Qabalah/Kabbalah (there are a few spellings, but looking up either of these will get you on your way). There are many books on the subject and it can be daunting to begin with, but this article will give you a brief run down of what this conversation is pertaining to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_life_(Kabbalah)

Additionally, I have found the book Climbing the Tree of Life: A Manual of Practical Magickal Qabalah by David Rankine to be relatively straight-forward and would recommend it if you were interested in further reading: http://www.amazon.com/Climbing-Tree-Life-Practical-Magickal/dp/1905297068

It seems very boring to a lot of mystic newbs but I've been evangelizing the shit out of Qabalah lately. If you want to see the connections between all things and the machinery that runs the universe, this is the place to start.

Begin with something breezy that'll let you ease into the concepts: Lon Milo DuQuette's Chicken Qabalah. It's like an exegesis of Douglas Adams's Life, The Universe, and Everything.

Then dive in deep.

Dion Fortune's Mystical Qabalah

Aleister Crowley's Book of Thoth

This shit will blow your mind wide open. You can see how the 10 Sephiroth directly correspond to the 10 dimensions of the universe, how the first 4 correspond to actual space and the 5th to time as we understand it.

It'll show you the operating schematic for literally everything and how we are all connected and sprang forth from the same no-thing. Every new page I read blows my mind.

Chicken Qabala is a pretty entertaining and informative intro.

By far the best place to start is with Lon Milo DuQuette's book.

The Chicken Qalabah by Lon Milo Duquette. His humorous voice helps me understand fundamental concepts of ceremonial magick. After I read this, I started looking at the world differently, connecting things.

This one right here has led me through some powerful and meaningful experiences and sychronicities:

The New Living Qabalah by Will Parfit

(C) 1979 Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan.
>One, the very simplest, is that 6000 years ago,
HaShem created the universe with a history. There is a
certain logic to this, and one may even find a hint of it in
the Gemara. If HaShem created a tree, did the tree have
rings or not? If it had rings, then it had a history.

>This can be extrapolated to all of life. Every creature
has to have had a parent, so that we have a history going
way, way back. HaShem could have easily created the
universe to appear as if it were no more than 6000 years
old.

>The difficulty is that one could use a similar
argument to say that HaShem created the universe five
minutes ago. There is no question that an omnipotent God
certainly could have created us all with our memories, with
all the records, and with all our histories. It is very possible to say that the world was created five minuets ago. But this weakens the above argument. If it is possible that
HaShem created the world 6000 years ago, then everything
is possible.

>Of course, it is an irrefutable argument. Therefore, if
one feels comfortable with it, I would say all well and good. But I think that it has problems. It touches almost on
intellectual dishonesty and sophism. It presents us with
more problems than it answers. It seems to make all of
Judaism depend on a glib argument.

>But there is an even more serious problem. In no
place in Torah literature do we find that HaShem created
the universe so that it should appear to be billions of years old. If not for current scientific discoveries, no one would have ever made such a statement based on Torah sources
alone. Therefore, this approach is nothing more than
apologetics.

>There is another approach that I will mention in
passing. That is, that each of the “days” of creation was
really thousands of years long. This approach is hinted at
in Rabbeinu Bechayay, who mentions it only to refute it.
He says explicitly that the world was created in six days of
twelve hours each, for a total of 72 hours. Moreover, we
keep Shabbos because there were six days of creation,
where each day was just like one of our days.

>Moreover, there is no support in classic Torah
literature for saying that the days of creation were more
than 24 hours long. Besides this, there is the problem that
plant life was created before the sun, moon, and stars, and
this would not fit into any accepted scientific cosmology. I
will admit that the Zohar states that plant life was created
after the sun, moon, and stars, but this raises other
difficulties which go beyond the scope of our discussion.

More here or in Kaplan's book.

The shem is the 72 names of god, its a 3 letter word based on hebrew. if you add EL or IAH after you get an Shemhamphorasch angel.

if you are interested in working in a simple way with this i recomend http://www.amazon.com/72-Sigils-Power-Insight-Wisdom-ebook/dp/B014VZNEJ8/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Mystical Qabalah by Dion Fortune was an excellent introduction for me.

for an excellent treatment of this topic, check out rabbi aryeh kaplan's immortality, resurrection, and the age of the universe

This was my first book on the subject and was extremely enlightening. I still reference it often.
http://www.amazon.com/Garden-Pomegranates-Skrying-Tree-Life/dp/1567181414

>...one man called the borchu while the rest of us were leaving. I get that he was probably davening at a different pace than the rest of us but I don't really know the how/why.)

It is a fairly common practice for someone who came late and missed borchu to do it at the end of davening.

>How do people decide to be Breslover? What would be the things that would be special/distinct about Breslover life, versus my experiences with MO and Chabad?

A lot of people find Breslov attractive for a variety of reasons. In particular, Breslov takes a very realistic attitude towards personal growth, emphasizing that failure - repeated failure - is an integral part of the growth process and the main thing that matters is never giving up.

I personally am not Breslov, so I'm obviously not the most qualified to tell you how to learn about their approach, but I can say that there are a number of good books on the subject available in English that can give you a decent introduction:

• Rabbi Nachman’s Wisdom
  
  
• Outpouring of the Soul
  
  
• Crossing the Narrow Bridge: A Practical Guide to Rebbe Nachman’s Teachings

Kabbalah is basically Jewish mysticism, there's all sorts of source books and modern writings on it. I can recommend The Chicken Qabalah of Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford: Dilettante's Guide to What You Do and Do Not Need to Know to Become a Qabalist.

There are three books by William Grey about the Tree of Life that you might find interesting.

• The Ladder of Lights (spheres)
  
  
• The Talking Tree (22 paths) I don't know what the difference is, but my copy has 550+ pages.
  
  
• Qabalistic Concepts

The Sacred Mushroom and The Cross: A study of the nature and origins of Christianity within the fertility cults of the ancient Near East https://www.amazon.com/dp/0982556276/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_-z4EDbWFEQT1P

The Psychedelic Gospels: The Secret History of Hallucinogens in Christianity https://www.amazon.com/dp/1620555026/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_SA4EDb1CJH5WS

Astrotheology & Shamanism: Christianity's Pagan Roots. A Revolutionary Reinterpretation of the Evidence (Black & White Edition) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1439222428/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_bB4EDbW0ZGGTT

Sacred Knowledge: Psychedelics and Religious Experiences https://www.amazon.com/dp/0231174063/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_rC4EDbZ2RWDBS

DMT and the Soul of Prophecy: A New Science of Spiritual Revelation in the Hebrew Bible https://www.amazon.com/dp/1594773424/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_9C4EDb46EFXG4

❤️

Long shot, but could we be talking about this?

You need to read Breslov Khosidus. Rebbe Nachman addresses your situation specifically.

• https://www.amazon.com/Outpouring-Soul-Rabbi-Nachmans-Meditation/dp/0930213149
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Restore-My-Soul-Meshivat-Nefesh/dp/1928822959

Read this: https://www.amazon.com/DMT-Soul-Prophecy-Spiritual-Revelation/dp/1594773424

I don't know anything about Masonry but I am highly doubtful of the Naqshbandi/Syrian Rue connection. The Naqshbandis are the most conservative Sufis, very anti-drug etc. Almost any other Order would be more likely.

I do have some info on alleged connections between Sufism and Masonry though, but as I say, I don't know anything about Masons.

This book is interesting - from Strassman, the guy who did the DMT research of "Spirit Molecule" - he's arguing for a similar thing in prophecy.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594773424/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

"It's all in your head. You just have no idea how big your head is!!!" - Lon Milo DuQuette

} from this awesome book y'all might wanna read:
https://www.amazon.com/Chicken-Qabalah-Rabbi-Lamed-Clifford/dp/1578632153