Month: July 2014

archaicwonder:

Middle Assyrian Red Sard Cylinder Seal, South Mesopotamia, 12th-11th century BC

Showing a griffin-demon (apkallu) tearing a branch from a tree.

This is an unusual seal with regards to the typical griffin-demon and tree motif in ancient art. In Neo-Assyrian glyptic and monumental art, griffin-demons are often portrayed in the action of fertilizing the female blossoms of the date palm.  On this seal it seems like the apkallu is picking off a branch instead of fertilizing it.

Towards a Greek Kabbalah: First Swirlings

Towards a Greek Kabbalah: First Swirlings

prosperosfootnotes:

theheadlesshashasheen:

prosperosfootnotes:

theheadlesshashasheen:

The idea, I claim, is an interesting one: in the absence of Hebrew kabbalah, is it possible to make a Hellenic style of emanationist cosmological magic and theology that works with the Greek letters as magical units and entities in their own right?  Asked another way, could there conceivably be such a thing as a Greek qabbalah?  So I started thinking about it, and I first went and looked up translations of the names of the sephiroth and the like from Hebrew into Greek, and started translating other names into Greek as well, and also rewriting the magic number squares of the planets using Greek letter-numerals to develop new planetary spirit names.

Now I’m thinking I was going down the wrong path and need to start fresh without using the Tree of Life, or even using Jewish kabbalah at all.

A. Why the fuck do we really need QBL anyway? The Sephira? Fuck off. The planetary gates system is old as dirt, and involves just as many correspondences. The underworld was exported into the sky relatively quickly (e.g. between 200 BCE and 200 CE or so, but that’s me being conservative).

B. Stephen Flowers already created a ‘Tree of Life’ using Greek concepts for the Sephira/ToL in Hermetic Magic. I fucking hate it, but it already pretty much exists.

Because some of us LIKE the QBL, ye great Dionysian dissenter.

I suppose that is a fine answer.

[Grumbles.] [guzzles coffee.]

Tch. No pleasing some people.

[Sniffs primly.] [sips tea.]