Kabbalah for integration?

[Tyler_Trismegistus]

After watching a lecture of Rick Strassman explaining how to use religious systems as a means to integrate the psychedelic experience, I recently started reading about Kabbalah. So far the ideas and beliefs seem extremely psychedelic and I'm finding myself resonating a lot with the mystery of it all. Has anyone used kabbalah to integrate their own experiences? I'm interested to hear.

 

[Pharmacognosis]

I'm pretty sure Kabbalah has its roots in the teachings of the Gnostics, the Bahir dates back to the 1st century and has proven gnostic elements. Gnosticism at that early time had a sizeable amount of Neo-platonicism and Neo-pythagoreanism (see Simonianism for an example), which was heavily influenced by the Alexandrian Mystery Schools. The Mystery Schools were by all accounts psychedelic cults and are very shrouded and obfuscated and threatened death to those who revealed their secrets. So having said that Kabbalah is a fantastic vehicle to understand multilayered reality and has a firm foundation in the entheogenic metaphysics of ancient Greece and Rome before their fall, and possibly even retains remnants of the Egyptian Mysteries that the Greeks based their own kykeon-cults upon.

The Four World Theory is especially useful, which is essentially Assiah (earth) /matter, Yetzirah (water) /astral, Beriah (air) /hyperspace (my interpretation), and Atzilut (fire) /godhead. Reaching Beriah from Yetzirah is especially interesting for me because this is where most mysticism takes place in my eyes.

Kabbalah can also be correlated with almost anything, it's the most mathematical of all mysticisms excepting Pythagoreanism.

Z'ev Ben Shimon Halevi is by far the best author for the non-Jewish researcher. Adam and the Kabbalistic Tree of Life is a good read, also The Kabbalistic Universe and The Work of the Kabbalist are my favorites but he is very prolific. Orthodox Kabbalah focuses excessively on numerical codes (Gematria) in the Old Testament and is not very applicable unless you believe the Torah is the literal word of YHVH.

 

[Tyler_Trismegistus]

Wow, thank you for that response. Much more than what I expected I'm reading a book called Kabbalah for student at the moment and so far so good :thumb_up:

 

[zhoro]

Wow, thank you for that response. Much more than what I expected I'm reading a book called Kabbalah for student at the moment and so far so good :thumb_up:

Ah, Rav Laitman's book. Are you actually studying with Bnei Baruch?

 

[Tyler_Trismegistus]

Unfortunately I don't have any one on one teaching. I've been wanting to find a system that works with me to use as a model for a while. Buddhism didn't resonate with me, Christianity didn't, Hinduism didn't, new age didn't(sucked me in for a little bit at the beginning of my awakening haha)..... so far kabbalah is something that I can actually read, understand and apply.

 

[zhoro]

Unfortunately I don't have any one on one teaching. I've been wanting to find a system that works with me to use as a model for a while. Buddhism didn't resonate with me, Christianity didn't, Hinduism didn't, new age didn't(sucked me in for a little bit at the beginning of my awakening haha)..... so far kabbalah is something that I can actually read, understand and apply.

You should definitely follow what you best connect with and that will likely change with time. I have some experience with Bnei Baruch and it wasn't what I connected best with. I will qualify that by saying that I very much connected with a text called Shamati, which I encountered through Bnei Baruch. Shamati (I Heard) is a direct sharing of experience by Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag (also referred to as Baal HaSulam, Master of the Ladder, whose heritage Bnei Baruch claims), which resonated strongly with me and my experience.

The Bnei Baruch organization offers free online education, they have tons of materials available for free through their website - books, lectures, video lessons, etc. They have a massive dissemination effort going on. I have friends who are very involved in it and it is without a doubt the most important thing in their lives. But if you do decide to take a few deeper steps in it, be prepared to hear that it is the sole carrier in our times of the only true teaching that ever was (all other spiritual paths being in some way adulterated, incomplete). Also, be prepared to be asked for a 10% tithe at some point, which, while technically voluntary, is presented as indispensable for spiritual progress, being a way to align yourself with the will to give, albeit not entirely truthfully for the time being, in your efforts to build a masach - the screen you must learn to place over the will to receive, which is your nature as a creation, to ensure that you only receive for the Creator's sake, which will make you like the Creator - the goal of the Kabbalist.

 

[Global]

In my article in the first Nexian e-zine starting on page 33, I relate a story where an interpretation of text from the Kabbalah really gave me quite the integration.

 

[waitwhatwhere]

Promethea. Alan Moore. Books 1-5.