Merkabah Mysticism

[Beth]

Shinobi,

Hi there![]  Thanks for your question.

First, Merkabah Mysticism is not "my path."  I have yet to find a written tradition that is totally and systematically reflective of "my path."  I really won't be disappointed if I never find one--because that is usually where "religions" come from!

Merkabah Mysticism is the mystical tradition that my research involves and that I am writing a book about.

Merkabah Mysticism was the precursor to the development of the Medieval Kabbalah.  It has really only been in the last 45 years that this ancient tradition has come to the foreground of scholarship, so there really isn't a great deal available yet.  

There are a great many theories about this branch of mysticism and new theories are coming around all the time.  Mine is just one of them.  And, I should add, mine is only part of this, in that my research provides a method to their writing/reading/understanding biblical scripture.  I am sure that there is a great deal more to the tradition than this.  I only have one piece to the puzzle. I think it is a very important piece however, because to apply these methods to all of biblical scripture, instead of just picking and choosing a few verses here and there, the other layers of meaning or the encoded messages within scripture may very well tell us more of this tradition.  And yes, it may just be "another description of the divine and our relationship to it."  

I strongly suspect that it is.  I have posted elsewhere that what I have found so far is not "new."  If you have studied Greek Philosophy, and a few other lines of thinking such as Quantum Mechanics, then none of it will be "new."  It will however show that 2,000+ years ago, they were thinking along the same lines as we are today--or perhaps better put--we have not progressed that far after all!

The word "Merkabah" can be interpreted several different ways, depending upon how you translate or decode the word.  As a straight translation, it is derived from the verb "to ride" as in a chariot.  Chariots were the vehicle of the day, and I believe it was a metaphor for "vehicle" as in the "divine spirit" or perhaps even the "human soul."  Perhaps it is both.  I cannot say for sure.  Another way of reading this word is "combination" or "permutation" and is the "combination and/or permutation" of the Hebrew letters in making vocabulary words.  

We must remember that written language was primarily reserved for the educated few, and new words were being created every day, most especially words that were philosophical in nature.

We forget that we are working from a vocabulary that took several thousand years to develop, and during the ancient period, they did not have this at their disposal.  For example, "metaphor" was relied on in a huge way to illustrate "what something is like."  For example, to ponder the heavenly realm "was like--gazing into the eyes of your lover."  The word "philosophy" means "love of wisdom."  It was much easier for people to understand with metaphor and personification, such as "wisdom" being a "she" and being a person's "lover."  

Aristotle and Plato had a great time with language, creating new words with pun and wordplay, and using the Greek language, they would "combine words" to create new words that held "combined meaning."  They used this process to discuss philosophical inquiries into things such as "metaphysics."  There is a whole philosophy of language that can be attributed to ancient Greek philosophy.  And of course, Plato made the use of allegory a very important teaching tool for philosophy.

The Jewish scholars of the first century were living in a predominately Hellenistic world.  They were educated in the Greek system and taught Greek thought.  Greek was their primary language.  Hebrew was used only by higher educated people, and then it was considered a part of their "mystery tradition" or "Merkabah Mysticism."  It is my theory that a very important part of Merkabah Mysticism was the translation of the proper names in the Bible. Not just in the Greek form, but in their Hebrew form--and that biblical people were not supposed to be taken as real people participating in real events, but rather, as "names" that were also "Hebrew words" which communicated "philosophical thought" to those who could read the language.  The "vehicle" of this language mysticism was biblical stories written to also communicate moral and societal circumstances reflective of human nature.  But it was the meaning of the names that was most important, not the stories that were created to transmit them or as "garments" for them.

Brilliant scholars such as Gersholm Scholem, Moshe Idel and Joseph Dan (and many others) have been working with this tradition for decades now. It is really receiving a lot of attention now.  There is still so much to discover, learn and understand about this.  Most all the texts have not been translated into English yet, so English readers are just going to have to wait patiently until they are.  

Like I said, I just have one piece to a much bigger puzzle.I am trying to include all of the pertinent aspects of this in my book, and to be honest, to try and go into it here would take a great deal of time and thread space.  I have given what I can so far.

Do you have any specific questions?  I will do what I can to answer them to the best of my knowledge, but I may also refer you to a particular book or a specific scholar.   Kabbalah in the medieval sense is not my specialty, if that is the aspect that you are interested in, but I do know a little.

Let me know if I can help any more than this.

Peace,[]
Beth

p.s. Sorry about the bickering in the other threads.  I guess I can blame it on "stress" but that is really not a very good excuse.  I am going to steer clear of that kind of behavior in the future.[:I]  

[Shinobi]

...

[Beth]

Shinobi,

Hey there! []

You wrote:

quote:"so where's the (divine/fundament of reality/that which cannot not be)? Where's that at again? Which isle? How do I find it? What's it look like?"

Boy, would I love to know the answers to these questions!! But, alas, I do not.  

I don't know Shinobi, I think that we can eventually know more about these answers, but I cannot say whether we can know "all there is to know" while we are on this plane of existence.  I think there are many planes of existence, and each plane of existence has its own "limit" to what can be known.  On our plane, I think we can learn a great deal more about these answers, but not until we progress out of antiquated ideas that no longer serve to evolve our species.  I also think that we can eventually use language to discuss these things, outside of the use of metaphor, because as you noticed, metaphor can most certainly be a double edged sword.  

Speaking of the "double edged sword" metaphor--our plane of existence is most obviously one where dualism has become a norm.  This metaphor is beginning to change to let's say, a revolving crystal, or a shimmering diamond.  This metaphor will eventually replace the dualism of "sword" and would describe instead more than two facets of our existence.  But the important thing about this is, as you know, we must always recognize that even the crystal metaphor is still a "metaphor" and should not be taken literally as it has been our past tendency to do.  

For example, I was having a conversation with a professor several years ago about all the different "spiritual things" going on today.  He was genuinely concerned about all the "crystal gazing" going on, equating it with idolatry, until I told him that the crystal itself was not the important thing--the crystal only provided a "reason" for people to slow down, set aside a little block of time everyday and learn how to "quiet the mind."  That the crystal was just a pretty tool, but some people do it with candles, or rocks  or other physical items.  So in essence, he was taking literally (and perhaps some people do) the idea that there are "magical properties" in crystals.  I told him that if there was I wasn't aware of it, but that in my opinion, the most important "magical property" is in achieving a "quieting of the mind" and not in the crystal itself.  

So, yes, taking metaphor literally has really caused a great deal of harm.  Countless people have died because of the "sword metaphor" and unless our species figures out a way to murder each other with a "crystal or a diamond" it may prove to be a much safer metaphor!  

But once again, as we evolve, so will our language.  We will continue to create new words as we discover the laws of nature and we will not always need metaphor for things that we need them for at the moment.  
But I suspect that there will always be the need for metaphor to describe those things we have yet to agree on.

I wish that my research were offering something to "take the place of what it takes away" but that is apparently not a part of what I am supposed to do.  There are a great many others in our world today, and I am sure on their way in, that will help to develop and provide us with a new-updated-concensus of reality.  Until then, it might get a bit messy.  

Merkabah Mysticism, to the best of my knowledge, and at least at this point, does not really offer us much in this area that we do not at least already speculate about.  It does not really offer any new technique or practice that many of us here have not already experienced in our own way.  Merkabah Mysticism was the method through which these ancient mystics achieved a trance state, experienced OBE and lucid dreams/visions, obtained higher levels of awareness/consciousness, and made contact with the divine realm (other realms.)  Most all of us have done so already without the aid of Hebrew Language Mysticism.  

Personally I do not think the method is near as important as the actual doing.  In other words, as long as it is not scary or threatening in any way, I have been known to say before--"whatever gets you there!" []  

Beth    

[Shinobi]

...