Merkavah Mysticism

PROLOGUE of this paper is an extreme detail analysis of Chartres Cathedral's the symbolism embedded into the three Rose Windows. The whole purpose of this paper is to illustrate how Ezekiel's Merkabah is symbolized by the North and South Rose Windows. This analysis will demonstrate the pivotal esoteric teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. The history of Chartres will be discussed along with some of its sculpture. This is the second paper in a three part series on the analysis of Ezekiel's Merkabah. Part-One of the series will be on Ezekiel's Merkabah in the first chapter of Genesis and Part Three will be on Ezekiel's Merkabah laid out symbolically in the Sistine Chapel. Part-Two of the series is published first; because, I was well into writing it and; because, I had already written a paper on Ezekiel's Merkabah in the first chapter of Genesis; however, that second version has to be revised to incorporate other interpretations of the texts of the first chapter of Genesis in order for the initiate to envisage the symbolism laid out in Chartres Cathedral and the Sistine Chapel.

I describe Various modes of perceiving the divine as residing within spiritual time and place, or as itself being time and place, and suggest the relationship between these supernal forms of time and place and earthly time and place. This will involve an examination of the mythical, or, alternatively, the mystical consciousness as bearing within itself the memory and longing for time and place; as creating the forms of contemplation of time and place within reality; or as rising from time and place to the crystallization of concepts of supernal time and place — or towards the ideal time and place which are themselves the Divinity.

In Islamic mysticism and theurgy, the Seven Seals represent in graphic form the Greatest Name of God; in Jewish Kabbalah, the Seals bear individual Divine Names which collectively form a “Great Name.” We review and compare the primary interpretations and secondary associations for each Seal in Islam and Judaism, from which it is clear that the two traditions have developed largely independent understandings of the individual symbols. Nevertheless, points of convergence – such as the interpretation of the fourth Seal as a ladder and an ascent to/of goodness – do exist. Conversely, the attributes of the third Islamic and seventh Jewish Seals have a surprising amount in common. Collectively, the Seals have been linked via word- and letter-counting to key affirmations of each religion: the Islamic ones to the Shahāda, the Jewish ones to Psalm 46:7,11. In contrast to the Islamic Seals, individual correspondences are rarely given for the Jewish Seals and are inconsistent across sources. Kabbalistic amulets are more likely to employ the Names of the Seals than their symbols, and when present the latter are often much degraded; in contrast, Islamic talismans make frequent use of the symbol series. In Islamic magic, the Seven Seals are associated with the seven Ṭahaṭīl Names, which exhibit possible similarities to the Names of the Seals in Kabbalah. Intriguing overlaps of the Jewish Seal Names with Egyptian mythology and Vedic Sanskrit are explored, but ultimately it is thought more likely that the  seven Names derive from the Names of God’s fingers and eyes (five plus two, respectively) in the Shīʿūr Qōmah of the Hekhalot literature. Fittingly, exegesis of the Seals in both Judaism and Islam contains general themes of hands/fingers and sight/blindness.

In Jewish tradition, the Torah has often been viewed as the ultimate compendium of esoteric data, knowledge which is deeply concealed from the eyes of the uninitiated. In light of this, we should now draw our attention to another office of Yahoel which is closely related to his role as the revealer of ultimate secrets – his possible role as the Prince of the Torah or Sar Torah.

This paper is one of a series of studies about Sefer ha-Bahir, portraying its various layers in terms of their historical contexts, stylistic characteristics, and various theological topics that arise therefrom. The paper begins with the description of a stylistic feature found in the Babylonian layer of Bahir: a dialogue of intellectual dueling between master and disciples. Through analysis of several passages describing such dueling, as well as of similar passages in Sefer Razah Rabbah  (whose similarity to Sefer ha-Bahir was already noted by Scholem), we find that, in practice, these describe a process of initiation conducted by the master for his disciples. The master repeatedly puts his disciples to the test, seeking to ascertain their knowledge of the structure of the upper world. Once the disciples have successfully completed their period of initiation, they are sent on an independent journey of descent to the Merkavah, upon whose successful completion both heaven and earth rejoice. If, at the beginning of our study, the master is seen as behaving harshly towards his students, criticizing and embarrassing them, by the end it becomes apparent that this was no more than staged anger on the part of the master, who is in fact imbued with love towards his disciples; or else a group dynamic agreed by both sides, whose purpose is to prepare the disciples for their dangerous journey heavenwards. Such group dynamics can only exist within a closed hierarchic group, with a framework of strict discipline and insistence upon the esoteric nature of the knowledge being conveyed.

The Torah (Old and New Testament) is basically a discussion about the dawn of creation, which allows the psyche of the initiate to obtain Christ consciousness. This is all symbolized in the first letter of the Hebraic Coder: ALEPH.

The bible and its original source material: i.e. MATRIX OF WISDOM is always referring to a duel system: spiritual in contrast to the material.  The ancient wrote the spiritual texts without vowels, dots or tittles; whereas, to write the surface story-line that would maintain the original spiritual texts vowels, dots and tittles were used to give a chronological view of Jewish and/or Christian history, which has absolutely nothing to do with the spiritual texts.

Some Hebrew mystical texts use esoteric rhetoric, yet our ability to historically verify these claims is very scant.
This article tackles this problem from a new angle.  Literary analysis of Sefer Yeşira shows that it contains many poetical features typical of oral traditions: alliteration, assonance, anaphora, parallelism, semantic compression, the play of words, and beautiful visual images that serve as organizing principles.  Most important is the constant effort to use numerical systems as organizing principles.
Thus this article claims that the motivation for garbling mystical ideas in a beautiful rhythmic song-like text is mnemonic – the need to remember the group’s unique esoteric ideas without feeling free to put them into writing.  The fact that the text was edited and adapted time and again over many generations might explain the lack of consistency in using those literary means.

The Torah offers four different descriptions of Shavuot, all related to agricultural milestones in the land of Israel. How then did it evolve to become a celebration of the Covenant between God and the Jews with the giving of the Torah? I assumed that the modern covenantal celebration of God giving Torah to the Jewish people at Shavuot must have come from later sources (i.e., the Babylonian Talmud), which discarded most of the agricultural practices in the Land of Israel as invalid outside of the Land, while attributing a historical milestone to celebrate. However, as I searched the sources for the evolution of this Festival from an agricultural celebration to the giving of Torah, I instead discovered its roots in ancient agricultural rituals designed to re-enact the Covenantal love story between God and the Jewish people. The selected sources for study reveal the many perplexing aspects debated by sages for centuries as to how to deal with the true essence of Shavuot.

הספר "פרקי היכלות" מציג מסורות מיסטיות עתיקות העוסקות בירידה למרכבה השמימית, בתיאור ההיכלות העליונים ובהשבעת מלאכים. זמן התהוותן של מסורות אלו בתקופת המשנה, התלמוד והמדרשים, וחלקן יוחסו לגדולי התנאים רבי ישמעאל ורבי עקיבא. בהיותן מתחום המיסטיקה הן לא נפוצו בקרב העם, ונשתנה גורלן מגורל מסורות מדרשיות והלכתיות שנקלטו היטב בקהילות ישראל. רק יחידי סגולה העבירו את מסורות ההיכלות מדור לדור, והן נערכו עריכה אחרונה בידי חסידי אשכנז במאה ה-13. מעט מזעיר מעריכה זו הוצא לאור עם הופעת הדפוס, אך רבה הייתה בספרים אלו הערבוביה שנבעה משינויי הגרסאות בכתבי היד ומשיבושים לאין ספור שהשתרבבו בהם במרוצת הדורות.

בהתאמה למסקנות מתחום המחקר, בא "פרקי היכלות" לרכז את מסורות ההיכלות לא לפי חלוקתן המקובלת עד עתה אלא על-פי סידורן לנושאים. חלוקה זו מלבד עשותה סדר במסורות המיסטיות מנגישה אותן לקורא בן זמננו ואף יוצרת לעתים רצף סיפורי מרתק.

Resumo
O diálogo entre religião e literatura deve ser capaz de estabelecer as bases epistêmicas sobre as quais esse diálogo ocorre. Nesse sentido, a relação do texto com a cultura não é evidente e precisa ser explicada. O artigo parte das atuais teorias dos imaginários sociais e da construção social do silêncio, tentando chegar a um entendimento mais completo do texto apocalíptico da antiguidade judaica e cristã. A teoria dos imaginários traz tanto a questão subjetiva quanto a social do silenciamento; por outro lado, o silêncio e a linguagem são categorias presentes nas religiões, o que contribui para a discussão sobre a relação entre religião e literatura. Assim, o artigo tem uma pretensão teórica e descritiva. Na primeira parte, leva em conta uma teoria da construção social do silêncio, colocando em evidência o papel do silêncio na literatura. Em um segundo momento, mostra como o silêncio está presente em histórias apocalípticas e revela questões centrais do imaginário compartilhadas por esses textos.
Palavras-chaves: imaginário; silêncio; apocalipse; merkaba; ascensão.
Abstract
The dialogue between religion and literature must be able to establish the epistemic foundations on which this dialogue takes place. In this sense, the relation of the text to the culture is not evident and needs to be explained. The article starts with the current theories of social imagery and the social construction of silence, trying to arrive at a more complete understanding of the apocalyptic text of Jewish and Christian antiquity. The theory of the imaginary brings both the subjective and the social question of silencing; on the other hand, silence and language are categories present in the religions that contribute to the discussion about the relationship between religion and literature. Thus, the article has a theoretical and a descriptive claim. In the first part takes into account a theory gives social construction of silence do highlighting the role of silence in literature, in another, of apocalyptic stories shows how the silence is present and reveals central issues of the Imaginary shared by these texts.
Keywords: imaginary; silence; apocalypse; merkhaba; ascension.

There are many traditional teachings surrounding the  Son of Man (ADAM) - this paper will discuss some of these concepts to provide a background, for anyone not familiar with other doctrines such as Merkavah or Apocalyptic literature and its relationship with New Testament documents.