Talk:Hermetic Qabalah

Transliteration of Hebrew

There are a few places in which I would transliterate slightly differently. In most cases that's not a big deal — there are many possible variations, none authoritative; I tend to use transliterations that reflect the original Hebrew spelling (e.g. 'ph' for letter Peh, 'ah' or 'eh' for final He, and not doubling consonants when representing a single hebrew letter). I don't think we need to offer multiple variations though, except perhaps for Qabalah, since it's a word used in the title.

The Tau you have transliterated as "t", which is indeed its pronunciation; I have however most often seen it transliterated as "th" for some reason, and Teyth (pronounced as "t") has most often been transliterated "th". I'm happy enough to do it the other way round, "t" for Tau and "th" for Teyth, since I don't know why it was so arse about face in the first place.

Now I find the transliteration Ayin, En Soph and Or En Soph rather odd. Firstly "Ayin" is a common transliteration for the letter name, and means "eye" or "fountain": OYN. The word here is quite different: Ain: AYN. That could confuse some people. Secondly, it's the same word as is later transliterated En, and we should really be consistent. Thirdly, I haven't seen the name ordered Or En Soph with the Or ("light") at the beginning; I've only ever seen it at the end as Ain Soph Aur. I suggest Ain, Ain Suph and Ain Suph Aur (Hebrew AIN, AIN SUP, AIN SUP AUR).

Nice work so far, by the way. Fuzzypeg☻ 02:48, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I notice Tau is elsewhere in the article transliterated 'th' as in Kether and Daath. That's far more common than the other way round; I'll standardise it to that. We can always revert if you don't like it. Fuzzypeg☻ 03:00, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

The Tau sound is 't' in Sephardi pronunciation, 'th' in Ashkenazi. The pronunciation of the letter 'a' is 'Ayin', but when the 'a' appears in the transliterated word, it's pronounced as 'Ein'. The transliterated spellings don't really matter as long as they're consistent in an article, though you'll find that there'll be differences when you're using a direct quote. Abafied 07:32, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

When you speak of the letter 'a' it's quite unclear what you mean. Do you mean א (letter name אלף, 'Aleph, "Ox"), or do you mean ע (letter name עין, "Ayin, "Eye, Fountain")? Neither is exactly an "a" sound, since the first is a glottal stop and the second is a pharyngeal stop (in the pronunciations I was taught at least). However the letter Ayin doesn't appear in the transliterated word pronounced 'Ein'. It's Aleph that appears in that word. 'Ain, as in 'Ain Suph Aur, is spelt אין, and means "nothing". If it were spelt עין it would be pronounced slightly differently and would mean "eye". I normally use the convention of putting a single apostrophe before the a to denote a glottal stop (aleph) and a double apostrophe for a pharyngeal stop (ayin). That's why you sometimes see Daath spelt Da"ath.

I have forgotten the differences between Ashkenazi and Sephardic. I normally just pronounce how I was taught, so I'm having to revise a bit here. But I agree, any standardised transliteration will do, and we'll just put up with differences in quoted text. Cheers, Fuzzypeg☻ 02:24, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Greetings and salutations, I am probably going to put the cat among the pigeons here but... I think this very erudite and interesting talk of the correct transliteration of Hebrew might be moving into original research. Remember, this page is devoted to explaining Hermetic Qabalah as exemplified by those who have published regarding this particular path. Because of this I suggest that the transliterations set out in the books of the practitioners of this system be used. The obvious counter argument to this is that Hermetic Qabalah is not a static system but a living evolving thing and, as such, preferred transliterations may change. However I find myself leaning toward the former position. We are here describing a system as it is set down in the published works of its proponents. Some of these proponents had little or no Hebrew and this is reflected in their work. It is this work that we must conform to here if we are not to stray into original research.

Accordingly I suggest we go with the transliterations used by Fortune, Crowley, Regardie et al. In their writings. All of these use the transliterations which we find, for example in Fortune's The Mystical Qabalah i.e.

"The Qabalists recognise four planes of manifestation, and three planes of unmanifestation, or Negative Existence. The first of these is called AYIN, Negativity; the second, EN SOPH, the Limitless; the third, OR EN SOPH, the Limitless Light. It is out of this last that Kether is concentrated. These three terms are called the three Veils of Negative Existence depending back from Kether; in other words, they are the algebraic symbols that enable us to think of that."

Morgan Leigh 01:06, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I forgot to mention that these transliterations are set out in Mathers' The Kabalah Unveiled and can be found at Mather's Table.

Morgan Leigh | Talk 01:58, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Categories

We do not add an article to supercategories of its narrowest category. Since category:kabbalah is a subcategory of category:esoteric schools of thought which is a subcategory of category:esotericism, neither of the latter should be added. category:kabbalah is also a subcategory of category:Jewish mysticism which is a subcat of cat:Mysticism, so mysticism does not get added, etc. The Ancient mysteries article defines what the ancient mysteries category is for, qabalah is not a member of the set that it defines.

That takes care of everything except panentheism. You'll need a reference which states that Hermetic Qabalah is a form of panentheism. My understanding is that Qabalah refers to a monotheistic God.

In any case, if qabalah is panentheistic, if is the category:kabbalah which should be added to panentheism, not this article. IPSOS (talk) 13:08, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Kabbalah in film and fiction

There is a section of the Kabbalah article, Kabbalah in film and fiction, which mostly is a list of films with Kabbalistic themes. Since the list seems more of Hermetic Qubalah interest, I am thinking of moving the list there....if there is no objection. Kwork 22:18, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

The only obvious candidates for moving here are Promethea and Foucault's Pendulum. If you want to move these, feel free. Fuzzypeg☻ 23:01, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I think that, almost without exception, they come under the heading of Hermetic (not Jewish) Kabbalah. But if it is not wanted here, I will simply remove it instead of moving it here. Kwork 11:15, 25 June 2007 (UTC)