Qabalah Fail
Jul. 22nd, 2009 10:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qosDuring last month's session with my spiritual director, I told him a bit about the Qabalistic studies I've been doing. He'd never heard of Qabalah before, nor the Tree of Life. I gave him a mini-overview, stressing that I am very much a beginner, and there is now a little sketch of the Tree in his (rather thick) folder of notes about our sessions.
Yesterday he brought to our session photocopies of a couple of pages from a book called "Dante's Equation" by Jane Jensen, including a drawing of the Tree of Life. . . or what was supposed to be the Tree of Life.
The paths were all wrong. There were no vertical pillars on the right or left. Tiphareth was not shown as connecting to every Sphere except Malkuth. Netzach and Hod did not connect to Malkuth.
"Dalet" was included as a Sphere above Tiphareth, connecting with Chochmah and Binah, with nothing to show that it's not actually there in the same way the other Spheres are.
It looks like someone saw an image of the Tree of Life, copied it badly, and then built a book on it without double-checking their work. Unless this is a legitimate alternate version of the Tree that I've never heard of???? (Hard to imagine, but I can't claim superior knowledege of this topic.)
I am now morbidly curious to read the book, if only to figure out what in the world the author is doing with this model. . .
Denton Wylie, a rich and charming tabloid writer, is researching an article about unexplained disappearances. Rabbi Aharon Handalman studies Kabbalah in Jerusalem and searches obsessively for "divinely implanted" coded messages in the Torah. Big, bad Calder Farris is a Marine Intelligence operative on the trail of cutting-edge scientific research that can yield new weapons technology. The ambitious young physicist Jill Talcott is secretly testing a revolutionary new theory in wave mechanics. The paths of these people converge in a search for missing pieces of a lost manuscript written at Auschwitz by a Polish rabbi, physicist, and mystic who vanished in front of witnesses 50 years ago. Modern physics and Kabbalah merge in Kobinski's manuscript, and as the four main characters pursue different aspects of the knowledge it contains, their quest delivers them deep into their own private hells. Although this genre-defying tale takes on weighty issues, Jensen's impressive mastery of fictional technique-plotting, humor, sympathetic characters, a great McGuffin, and lots of suspense-makes it feel like much lighter fare. The middle section is a bit hard to get through, but by then most readers will be hooked enough to stick around for the fitting denouement. This interesting story has obvious appeal for SF and suspense fans, but it is also an enjoyable exercise in the arcane for readers intrigued by codes, psychology, and mysticism.
Yesterday he brought to our session photocopies of a couple of pages from a book called "Dante's Equation" by Jane Jensen, including a drawing of the Tree of Life. . . or what was supposed to be the Tree of Life.
The paths were all wrong. There were no vertical pillars on the right or left. Tiphareth was not shown as connecting to every Sphere except Malkuth. Netzach and Hod did not connect to Malkuth.
"Dalet" was included as a Sphere above Tiphareth, connecting with Chochmah and Binah, with nothing to show that it's not actually there in the same way the other Spheres are.
It looks like someone saw an image of the Tree of Life, copied it badly, and then built a book on it without double-checking their work. Unless this is a legitimate alternate version of the Tree that I've never heard of???? (Hard to imagine, but I can't claim superior knowledege of this topic.)
I am now morbidly curious to read the book, if only to figure out what in the world the author is doing with this model. . .
Denton Wylie, a rich and charming tabloid writer, is researching an article about unexplained disappearances. Rabbi Aharon Handalman studies Kabbalah in Jerusalem and searches obsessively for "divinely implanted" coded messages in the Torah. Big, bad Calder Farris is a Marine Intelligence operative on the trail of cutting-edge scientific research that can yield new weapons technology. The ambitious young physicist Jill Talcott is secretly testing a revolutionary new theory in wave mechanics. The paths of these people converge in a search for missing pieces of a lost manuscript written at Auschwitz by a Polish rabbi, physicist, and mystic who vanished in front of witnesses 50 years ago. Modern physics and Kabbalah merge in Kobinski's manuscript, and as the four main characters pursue different aspects of the knowledge it contains, their quest delivers them deep into their own private hells. Although this genre-defying tale takes on weighty issues, Jensen's impressive mastery of fictional technique-plotting, humor, sympathetic characters, a great McGuffin, and lots of suspense-makes it feel like much lighter fare. The middle section is a bit hard to get through, but by then most readers will be hooked enough to stick around for the fitting denouement. This interesting story has obvious appeal for SF and suspense fans, but it is also an enjoyable exercise in the arcane for readers intrigued by codes, psychology, and mysticism.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-22 07:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-22 10:21 pm (UTC)I've seen more than 20 different versions of the Tree, most of them primarily used by one school or another of Jewish mysticism, three or four of them used by Hermeticists as well. The one you describe might be one of the odder variants, or might be a hash-up.
Crappy book...
Date: 2009-07-22 10:45 pm (UTC)It just is.
I read it. I want my 2 days back.
Re: Crappy book...
Date: 2009-07-22 10:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-22 11:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-25 01:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-06 06:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-06 11:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-07 04:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-07 06:09 am (UTC)