Kabbalah of Creation is a new translation of the early Kabbalah of Rabbi Isaac Luria, founder of the most influential Jewish mystical school of the last 400 years. Living in relative obscurity in Northern Galilee, Luria experienced a powerful epiphany that influenced his lyrical, influential text. Poetically and meditatively described, the range of subjects includes the revelation of the Godhead's light in the world and its relationship to every aspect of the human life cycle, including lovemaking, conception, gestation, birth, and maturation.

Sepher Yetzira is a second or third century Hebrew book that is considered to be the seminal work of Kabbalah because it is a mystical interpretation of the Old Testament's creation story, and Kabbalists delve beneath the surface of the Bible to understand the unspoken mysteries of how the world came to be. Ancient Secrets of Creation is a new translation and reinterpretation of Sepher Yetzira that provides the answers to questions about how God created the world, especially how the expression, "And God said" is used. Because of Sepher Yetzira's succinctness and the passage of time, its implicit meanings have been lost. However, this work provides a fresh understanding of Sepher Yetzira by rediscovering and clearly explaining those mathematical, scientific, philosophical, and theological foundations on which it rests. These include pertinent pre-Socratic Greek philosophies; the ideas of Plato, Plotinus, Iamblichus, Neopythagoreanism, and Neoplatonism; as well as the works of Philo of Alexandria, the Old Testament, and rabbinic understandings at the time that Sepher Yetzira was written. This translation and explication unlock the secrets hidden within the Hebrew-language text of Sepher Yetzira, the book that started Kabbalah.

Some four hundred years before Albert Einstein proposed his theory of relativity of the outer universe to the scientific community, a rabbi named Isaac Luria (1534–1572) passed his theory of the inner universe and its evolution to his students. With vision given only to the most gifted of kabbalistic mystics, Luria explained the inner worlds of the spirit and of the evolution that led to the ultimate birth of our cosmos. In a selection of passages from Luria’s Kabbalah that is both universal and stand-alone in transcendental value, Professor James Dunn presents, for the very first time, the essence of the great rabbi’s teachings. According to Luria, the ultimate calling in this lifetime or in future lifetimes is to reharmonize (and hence remove) inherent imperfections through proper heart, and the teachings presented here have just this aim: to help “heal the broken vessel of the world” (tikkun olam). We all long to be healed and whole, and here scholars and lay people alike will find the wisdom they seek.

The Kabbalistic idea of creation, as expressed through light, space and geometry, has left its unmistakable mark on our civilization. Drawing upon a wide array of historical materials and images of contemporary art, sculpture and architecture, architect Alexander Gorlin explores the influence, whether actually acknowledged or not, of the Kabbalah on modern design.

This book is a radical exploration of the mystical teachings in the Gospel of John. It helps the reader to experience these spiritual truths for themselves, and go beyond the everyday mind, which is dominated by the ego and realize their eternal Being, which Johns Gospel calls Logos. By approaching the teachings in a meditative state, the symbolism contained within the Greek text opens out and comes alive in the present moment. The Gospel is not a historical document; it speaks directly to each person now and the states of consciousness represented in the stories are accessible now. The book contains guided meditations to help bring this to life for the reader. This awakening concerns our relationship with the whole of life. Spiritual consciousness means that we are aware of the sacredness of our connections to each other as fellow human beings, and to the creatures of the natural world. Christ and the Logos contain both masculine and feminine in balance; at this critical time, our well-being and that of our fellow creatures is dependent on this realization. ,

Furnishing an accessible introduction to the traditions and teachings of the Kabbalah, this informative volume discusses the origins, history, study, and trends of Jewish mysticism, covering such topics as meditation and mystical techniques, the Kabbalahistic theory of creation and the human role in the universe, Kabbalahistic philosophy, and more.

The compilation of texts known as the Zohar represents the collective wisdom of various strands of Jewish mysticism, or kabbalah, up to the 13th century. This text examines how central doctrines of classical kabbalah took shape around the Zohar.

Kabbalists state that there is no reality at all, but something called His Essence, the Upper Force, and this is what we perceive as our world. As uncanny as it sounds, this notion hides in its wings the very prospect of freedom, for every person, for every nation, and for the entire world. The structure and the perception of reality are the surface of this book. But the story of humanity, or more accurately, of the human soul, is the undercurrent that drives the reader forward in this book. It is about you, about me, about all of us. This book is about the way we were, the way we are, the way we will be, and most importantly, it is about the best way to get there. In this neatly structured composition, every part speaks of a different aspect of Kabbalah. It starts with our perception of reality, our perception of the Creator, and the evolution of our soul in the spiritual worlds (including explanatory drawings). The book also clears up misconceptions about Kabbalah and explains, in plain words, how to experience the spiritual realm of our lives.

A bold line-by-line reexamination of the first 3 chapters of Genesis that reveals the essential nature of mind and creativity • Deconstructs each line of Genesis chapters 1-3 with esoteric methods derived from the oral teachings of the Kabbalah • Reveals the sefirot, the Tree of Life, as the Divine blueprint of the creative process • Explains how Genesis reveals the Divinity of mind and consciousness Hidden within the first three chapters of Genesis rests one of the greatest jewels of Western mystical literature. For millennia religious literalism has dominated our understanding of the Bible, imprisoning its subtle inner wisdom within the most coarse and superficial aspects of the narrative. Generations have been led to believe that Genesis 1-3 is only a primitive proto-cosmic history, a mythological explanation of the human moral disposition, a religious fairy tale. But by accepting the text as pure kabbalistic metaphor, the mystical content of Genesis springs forth, revealing the Divine nature of creativity as well as a new understanding of the human mind. Deconstructing each line of Genesis 1-3 with esoteric methods derived from the oral teachings of the Kabbalah, David Chaim Smith reveals how the ten sefirot, collectively known as the Tree of Life, are not simply a linear hierarchy. They are a unified interdependent whole with ten interactive functions, forming the template through which creative diversity manifests. Through acts of creation and creativity, the mind expresses its Divine nature. Through our Divine creative power, we are able to touch upon Ain Sof (the infinite), the lifeblood of all creative expression. Smith’s line-by-line examination of Genesis 1-3 reveals a complete model not only of Divine creativity but also of the predicament of the human mind, of the Divine nature of consciousness as well as our inability to recognize the mind’s Divinity. With this new interpretation, which removes the concept of a Creator God, we are able to transcend the contrasting notions of “being” and “non-being” at the heart of conventional habits of perception and awaken a new mystical understanding of Unity and the fathomless depth of Divinity.