A series of conferences for the first time translated into English, of Jean Vaquie, who was a counter revolutionary thinker in France. A layman but very well educated with good ideas.
This series of talks is on the Counter Church.
The first talk is on the Cabbale
AI translation and voice.
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Today we're going to look at the Kabbalah. Among the doctrinal sources of Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ and all imaginable societies of thought, the Kabbalah is always present. There is, therefore, agnosia, Hermeticism, the Grail, the Kabbalah, and the Rose. Today we're going to look at the Kabbalah. So, Kabbalah means tradition, but in reality, it means reception. Originally and etymologically, it means reception. Kabbalah means reception. Finally, from reception, the meaning evolved to transmission, that is to say, tradition. And so the question is, what is the origin of the ѕуηαgσgυє tradition? For many ecclesiastical writers, there is nothing divine in the Jєωιѕн tradition. And that seems to be what emerges from everything Saint Paul has to say about it. Nevertheless, there are some Church Fathers, notably Saint Hilary, who believe that Kabbalah does have a revealed origin. And Saint Hilary, in particular, recounts the Jєωιѕн tradition according to which Moses received from God not only what became the written law, but also an oral revelation which he transmitted to the 70 members of the council of elders before the establishment of the ѕуηαgσgυє. It was their responsibility to pass on this tradition to their heirs, but to preserve it, reserving it for the council of elders. Now, this is a notion I'm tentative about; I don't know whether to agree with it or not.
What is certain is that Kabbalah contains good things, but at the same time, it contains very bad things. The very bad things are obviously of human origin. And what good we can find in it, even now, in the state we find it in, where does it come from? Does it come from men? It could also come from men, since men can have some good ideas. Or does it come from a revelation made to Moses specifically for the council of elders? That's possible, it's possible, I don't know. In any case, if we assume that, we still have an explanation. Namely, since God gave a law that is, after all, difficult to understand, difficult to practice, and since, moreover, he made us wait for a savior, a messiah, it was just, well, it was logical, if we follow this hypothesis, that God would provide the means to find, to rediscover the wonders of grace hidden beneath the shadow of the law. That's the formula of the fathers in general. So, it was only natural that he would give them methods for deciphering this writing, wasn't it? It was one of the possibilities. Anyway, I don't subscribe to that explanation at all.
And do these things that are good in the hut, do we find them elsewhere? Ah, I can't tell you that. I base my work mainly on someone who, for me, kind of synthesizes all of this, it's Don de Montléon, who wrote all his books on the prophets, on the patriarchs, on David, on Moses, books that are very traditional in spirit, well, extremely traditional in spirit, they're very, very good, by the way. He was a Benedictine monk from the source, he was very unpopular with everyone, because of that, right, because he was so patristic. So we told him, you're completely wrong, that's more than anything, but no. So, he clung stubbornly to his system, and he did say that in the hut, there are still some gems to be found, but that he wasn't going to take on that responsibility. I think that's the general tone now. Anyway, from what I hear, from the traditionalists, right? it seems that we have to wait, to tell you what I really think, for the conversion of the Jews, for them to recognize themselves in this kind of appalling jumble, as jumble, it has everything in it, there are recipes, absolutely everything, bawdy anecdotes, well, there are all sorts of things, and at the same time, extremely profound insights, and at the same time, pantheism, the mystical pit, everything you can find in the nations they've gathered. So, the Montléans treasurer wasn't responsible for finding the pearls, but he said that there were certainly some, and from time to time, they found things that were astonishing.
And that doesn't surprise me, does it? With these Jews, you can expect anything. Obviously, they possessed a treasure for a long time, which they preserved with extraordinary skill. They had a gift for writing, God gave them a love of writing, and then He reproached them because one always sins through one's gift, doesn't one? They had a love of writing, and they preserved it magnificently. We now have a corpus of scripture, thanks to them, which is practically impeccable, isn't it? But then they had too much of a love for writing, and they altered it. So what is certain is that at the time of our Lord Jesus Christ, the divine master, didn't he, have a very severe judgment on the traditions of the Jews. That's for sure. He rebuked them for their traditions. I have them here, but I don't want to repeat them to you, because you know them better than I do. The passages of Scripture where God rebukes the Pharisees, the teachers of the law in general, for their traditions.
And Saint Paul, it was the same thing. And now Saint Paul, I'm going to quote a passage for you because I can find it right now. It's in Titus, chapter 1, verses 10-14. Titus, chapter 1, verses 10-14. Because there are many disobedient people, twenty misleading speeches, especially those of the circuмcision, that's right, it's not us who are, whose mouths must be silenced, who turn away from the truth. They profess to know God, but they deny Him by their works. And also we find in Saint Paul, then, in Colossians 2, verse 8: “See to it that no one takes you by surprise with philosophy and deceptive teachings, which depend on mere human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.” It's a purely human tradition, you see. So, the elemental principles of this world, “elementa mundi,” what does that mean? I think it must be the essence of pagan philosophy. I think that's perhaps what the elemental principles of this world are; I don't see what else it could mean. Finally, for Saint Paul, you see, it's human nature, he's bound by tradition. But I think it must be these traditions that our Lord Jesus Christ was criticizing them for. But are there any other traditions that Jesus Christ didn't criticize them for? He did say, after all, "The teachers of Lavas sit in the flesh of Moses. Do as they tell you, but do not as they do." That's already an indication that not everything in this cabal was bad. Anyway, you'll see that, while not everything was bad, there are many things that call for exegesis, even the most extreme kind, wouldn't you say? These are methods of deciphering scripture, but they are physical methods, and they ultimately lead to, well, as the humanists have said, haven't they, incantatory formulas. They use them because they have an effect on demons. They come from scripture, they are the words of God, and they twist them. They have become incantatory formulas for many.
So, when the temple was destroyed, when they were forced into dispersion, the Jews found themselves in a terrible predicament, because their priesthood depended on the temple. No more temple, no more priesthood, since sacrifices had to be offered in the temple. So, since the sacrifice could no longer be offered, there was no longer a priesthood either. So, they lost the priesthood of Aaron, which was self-appointed. And they were forced to create—well, they were forced to create the rabbinate, which is, in reality, a university. The rabbinate and the ѕуηαgσgυєs are universities. The ѕуηαgσgυєs already existed, but as universities. So, they kept that—the rabbinate and the universities—but they lost the priesthood of Aaron with its priestly powers, from the Old Law. So, naturally, they kept the scripture, which, moreover, continues to be preserved with the same care they had before. But, as you know, they interpret it differently, because they do not accept either the messiahship or the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so, from a religious point of view, they have taken refuge in an absolutely extraordinary mysticism. They devoted themselves to it with extraordinary zeal. So the inherited tradition, already bloated and corrupted, was enriched with new, mystical data, which were incorporated into the said tradition. And as if it were a new revelation, wasn't it? And that's it, all these additions to the tradition formed an entirely new tradition, which was then distributed across a multitude of books, old and new, wasn't it? A multitude of books, from the Targums to the Mishnah, to the Zohar, since, yes, we can say up to the Zohar, since after the Zohar, we can say that Kabbalah is complete, it is codified almost definitively.
So, during the first period, the Jews of the Diaspora focused first on codifying the disparate body of texts available to them. And this is what is called the period of the Tannaim, T-A-I-M. T-A-N-A-I-M, the Tannaim, that is to say, the period of the teachers. They completed the writing of the Mishnah, that is to say, the Code, because the Torah is the Pentateuch, the Torah is our Pentateuch. And in the Torah there is a special legal section called the Mishnah, which they call the Mishnah. We no longer need it since we have the Church with its commandments and its regulations. Is the Mishnah a legal commentary? The Mishnah is a legal commentary, yes, but it's legal; it's the Mishnah itself. But isn't it the actual text of the Holy Church? No, but it's included within it. For example, I believe the Mishnah includes Deuteronomy. At least, I think so. In any case, we'll look at that because there are other commentaries, you'll see, there are many other books of commentary. So we'll list them. So, the Mishnah contains, in particular, the legal section of... But let's not get ahead of ourselves; I wanted to talk to you about Halakha and Halakha, but that will come later.
So, in the first generation of the Tannaim, that is, the teachers, they focused on codifying what they could salvage from the law and jurisprudence. In the Mishnah, for example, we find jurisprudence that comes from Moses. We find rulings that were issued by Moses. That's exactly what you were saying; it's at least a legal and jurisprudential commentary. And then there was a next generation. The next generation is the generation of the Amoraim. The Amoraim, meaning the Ten Years. That is to say, they say what has just been codified by the Tannaim. So we expand and complete the Mishnah and write commentaries. These additional commentaries are the Gemarat. The Gemarat is a plural form of the word "Hôte," just as there is a plural form of "Hôte" in Nîmes and a plural form of "Hôte." In this case, it was "Gemarotat" because there are two Gemarat. There was a Gemara that was compiled in Palestine, and there was a Gemara that was compiled in Babylon, where many Jews had taken refuge. So, we're going to have a new series of commentaries, this time on the Gemaras. The two Gemaras, the one from Palestine and the one from Babylon. Together with the Mishnah, which is the code, the Gemara of Palestine gives rise to the Jerusalem тαℓмυd. Together with the Mishnah, the Gemara of Palestine gives rise to the Jerusalem тαℓмυd. And then, combined with the Mishnah, the Gemara of Babylon gives rise to the Babylonian тαℓмυd. Therefore, there are two тαℓмυds, differing only in their Gemaras. This proves that the Mishnah has a regulatory framework that remains consistent from one to the other. So these two generations of Tannaim and Amorain don't seem to have been mystics. The two тαℓмυds belong to Rabbinic Judaism and form the corpus of inherited Kabbalah. To this inherited tradition will be added a further tradition of a mystical nature. It is in this latter tradition that the most corrupt elements will be found.
The mystical movement that will further enrich the inherited Kabbalistic tradition will begin with the Gaon period. The Gaonim—here we have a plural form in Nîmes—the Gaonim were the political leaders of the Jews of Babylon. The Jews of Babylon had pledged themselves to a political leader known as the Exile-Arc. And who was at one point revered as a true Eastern caliph. It was there that the exile-bow took place; it didn't last very long, but still, this Gaonic period was important. Could you come roughly? How? What date does that correspond to? I don't know, I didn't write down the dates properly. The Gaonic period must correspond to a little before Charlemagne. A little before Charlemagne. That is to say, it must be around the year 700, you see. It's around the year 700. So it was under the Gaonim that the literature of the Midrashim began to flourish. Perhaps that's what you were referring to earlier, Father. No, it's not there. The literature of the Midrashim, right? Which are new interpretations. The Midrashim are not the Mishnah. These are still new interpretations. Interpretations that may not be mystical, that may simply be religious, meditations of that kind. But ultimately, these are interpretations that have nothing ancient about them. Well, then, with their penchant for codifying everything that comes out of their minds, right? Because they attach such great importance to it, they codified everything. I'm even talking about recipes, cosmology, history, anecdotes, countless medical recipes, herbal remedies—in short, all sorts of things like that. The concern was to catalog all the opinions expressed in the ѕуηαgσgυє. But these interpretations aren't necessarily mystical. Because there already exist, in Jєωιѕн mythology, scriptural methods of interpretation that date back to the time of Jerusalem, to the time of the Old Testament, and which are very ancient. I was saying that these methods are sometimes attributed to Moses.
So, it's time to name them. Together, all these methods form the Tserouf, what we call the Tserouf, T-S-E-R-O-U-F, T-S-E-R-O-U-F, the Tserouf, which is broken down into three methods. Gematria, G-H-E-M-A-T-R-I-E, Notaricon, N-O-T-A-R-I-K-O-N, and Temurah, T-E-M-O-U-R-A. So, we're going to unfold the table behind, where I've noted these different methods, and we'll go through them one by one. I've noted the alphabet first, because all of this is based on the alphabet, isn't it? So, we need to go through the alphabet. Aleph, Bet, J-M-E-L, Dalet, E, Vav or Vo, T-S-A-I-N, H-E-T-E-T-Y-O-D, K-A-F, L-A-M-E-N, M-E-N-U-N, S-A-M-E-S, A-I-N, F-E, S-A-D-E, K-O-F, R-E-S, T-I-N, T-A-U-T-O. And so, in Hebrew grammars, when you buy a Hebrew grammar, you always get the numerical values for these letters. And the chapters of the Torah and the Hebrew Bible are given with letters. That's how they are presented with letters. So, we have from 1 to 10, from Aleph to Yod, and then from Yod onwards, traditionally, we give the CAF 20, and then the Tzade 90, and from the Tzade onwards, it's the CAF H-I-T-A-F, which is 100, 200, 300, and 400. So, we arrive at the numbers from 1 to 400. It's very arbitrary. I don't know who invented this; I haven't been able to find out.
It's so arbitrary, in fact, that many Jєωιѕн books today, note, as I've done in green here on the side, that, starting with Yod 10, right, with the CAF (Chinese alphabet), begin at 11, 12, 13, 14, and end with Tav, which makes 22, since there are 22 letters in the family. But then, there are some Christian cavaliers today who find that not simple enough, and who have complicated it by saying, after all, there are 4 final letters, well, we'll incorporate them too, so that, and this is Gaston Bardet's CAF, it arrives here at number 26, since he adds 2, he adds another 4, you see. So, he shifts everything. So, all the results of the gematria from Notaricom and Témourin, especially the gematria, must be done with the new numbering system. Because this numbering system is based on the old one, that is, the one I've highlighted in red. So, you see, the alphabet is already complicated. In fact, that's how it is. I'm describing what I saw in the book. Okay, so, there you have it. As for the alphabet, these letters are superb. We're having a real treat with the letters. You know, it's... Oh, yes, it's magnificent. It's truly magnificent. And then, he attributes to them, I think it must be true, a philosophical value. Each letter has a philosophical value. I think that's true; it must be extremely rich. That's why it would be so good to have converted Jews, but only if they were truly converted. Half converted, right? That's the trouble with them. And who marries... And then, I'm sure they would bring forth riches from all this that would be both old and new, like, as it must be, from the treasure of the head of the family, where it is both old and new. There's no innovation per se, simply, things are brought out of a treasure trove that are there, but that hadn't been found before. So, I hope for that, but obviously not now. In any case, it's not Gaston Bardet who's bringing us this.
So, we have the three processes of gematria from the notaricuм of Temoura, which I've summarized here. So, gematria is a process that consists of calculating the numerical value of words in the alphabet, by adding the numerical values of the letters. So, we add the numerical values of the words and we get the numerical value of the word. Then, we compare the numerical values of these words. And when we find words that have the same numerical values, we compare their meanings. And it seems that most of the time, we come across analogous meanings, meanings that are related because of their numerical identity. Do you see? That's gematria. Okay, so I've given you an example here. Echad, which means 1, is written Aleph, He, Dalet, right? Numerically, it's 1, 8, and 4. Just compare it to something; it's 1, 8, and 4. That makes 13. And then there's Abba, which means love, which makes Aleph, Bet, and He, that makes 1, 5, 2, 5, which makes 13. That's united love. There's one that works. That one doesn't, we can't complain. It's fine. I've done other experiments; it works about once in ten times, you know. It works about once in ten times. But of course, we can't say it's completely useless. If we attribute a divine value to the Hebrew alphabet—well, yes, if we attribute a revelatory value to it—we have to pay attention to the result we get. That's obvious. Especially once you've assigned numerical values to the letters. So, what's the point of these numerical values? You know, quite a few people also assign numerical values to the letters of the Greek alphabet. And if you take a Bible in Greek, it's numbered with letters. The chapters. If you have one—I have one—it's numbered with letters. So, it's not completely absurd. It's not completely absurd, but it requires a great deal of evolution and extreme caution. You see.
Anyway, listen, it's still good to have some idea of what the cabin processes might be capable of. Because we talk about them so much, it's good to have some understanding. Even if they're very random processes, I think it's still important to know about them. It's not a bad thing to have heard of them at least once. I'm just going to give you a very tentative explanation. I'm not really into these things. That's not how my mind works. I see so many intelligent people working on this. I think to myself, after all, it might be interesting. Indeed, it is interesting. But to say it's convincing, no. We can also find confirmations of ideas we've had. And then... So, tele-temura is the substitution of each letter with a conventionally chosen letter. Wait, but we have notaricone before that. Notaricone, so to practice the notaricone technique, you choose a word whose hidden meaning you want to discover. For example, you have Adam. Adam, you want to discover the hidden meaning of Adam. There might be something in Adam. So, we break the word down into these letters, of course. Then we look for other words that begin with the constituent letters. And so, in Adam, you have Aleph, Dalet, and Mem. It's a single ending. You see, it's not a single ending within the letter itself, within the word. So, you look for words that begin with M. You have Messiah. So, here you have... It's a single ending, but it's not the same, if you will, because it's a single ending within the body of a word. That's a single ending, since it ends a letter, it ends a word. So, you have even, China, Yod, and He. That means Messiah. And then, you have the middle Dalet, which makes David. So, I didn't mark that one, did I? I haven't marked the vowel points, except here where it's necessary, since in Chinese, it would look different. So, Chinese isn't a vowel point. But I haven't marked the pronunciation because I don't know it. Vowels are the points added to the letters, because the letters of the Hebrew alphabet are consonants. There are no vowels, except for the Halef at the beginning, which is both a vowel and a consonant. So, you have David here, which is a Dalet, a Vau, and a Dalet. And then you have Adam, which you find here, because when you look for words that begin with A, the first one that comes to mind is Adam. So you find Adam and the Messiah. So Adam contains the Messiah and contains David. It's not Lisieux. But anyway, that's not what would have led us to it. We know it, but we don't know it from that.
So, the Temoura, now. The Temoura, well, that's frightfully complicated. And what's more, I used a K-5. I used the Temoura with a 1.5 combination. You'll see, you'll see, it's absolutely hilarious. We divide the alphabet in two. And then, we place the two parts, one on top of the other, so as to have a symmetrical combination, if you will, out in the open, everything, which gives you... Thank you. Thank you. And then Bâche, which gives you Bé-Chine. That is to say, the first letter is related to the last, and the second letter is related to the penultimate one. And so on. And it all revolves around iodine. Okay. So, that's the system. But there are some guys, Kabbalists, who have found something much more complicated. They divide it into three parts. And then, they have combinations that give them correspondences, not between two letters, but between three letters. It's frightening. You don't have to have had enemies of Kabbalah to indulge in such things. Well, they do it, that's for sure. I assure you. And that's why they call it the Temur of Hattbach, because there's another one. I wrote Hattbach, you know, you have a rate, and then a head and a china. And then we arrive at an absolutely extraordinary combination, which will lead us to some curious considerations. You have God, that's the frame of the Tetragrammaton, that's why I circled it in red, isn't it? It's the Yod-Rev-Re, isn't it? And then you have a word that corresponds to it, according to this correspondence, when you make the chiasmus, it gives you serpent. Since that gives you the four letters, you take serpent. You get a Jєωιѕн word that means serpent. So, obviously, the Jews concluded that they had a problem with God, that God contained the serpent.
Well, it's simply that they didn't understand the parable, yes, we can say that, of the serpent crucified in the desert. And so, here's the crux of the matter... they should have understood, and that's something that... it might answer the objection we're all raising right now. If they had really looked hard enough, they would have found it. Well, it was our Lord Jesus Christ who allowed himself to be sinned for us. That doesn't mean there was evil in him; it means that through a kind of mysterious subterfuge called redemption, he allowed himself to be sinned in our place. And the serpent crucified in the desert, the serpent of Herin, isn't that right?, holds the place of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. And if they had been very clever, with their method of cowardice, they might have finally understood. You see that. And very few... well, there aren't any... no Jew understands the parable of the serpent crucified in the desert. They all imagine it's because there's evil in God, and they conclude it's a coincidence, a coincinisio positorum, right? That good and evil must balance each other out, and that when you master both, you can achieve equilibrium. And that God balances good and evil, but incorporates them both. That's what they concluded. Whereas... if they had been truly intelligent, they might have discovered the mystery of redemption. That's why I chose this example, to show that it's not necessarily completely absurd. There might be things... you can draw certain conclusions from it, but with extreme caution. Anyway, I don't recommend doing so.
Have any Church Fathers offered an opinion on this? I don't know, there were some... That is to say, what there was, above all, was a great deal of indecision on the part of the Magisterium, who ultimately, at the time of the Renaissance Kabbalists, what we call Renaissance Christian Kabbalists, like Rochelin, had some of the same reflections we have now. There may be some truth to that, but the popes were very indecisive. They resisted the publication of the тαℓмυd for a long time, they finally accepted things like that, but without conviction. Without conviction because no one is convincing in that regard. It's not Rochelin who is very convincing. Rochelin invented something that Gaston Bardet is now using, isn't he? It's putting a shin in the Tetragrammaton. Because the Tetragrammaton, it seems, is unpronounceable in Hebrew. I don't know how... With visible dots, we'll be able to pronounce it, I think. It seems it's unpronounceable. And we make it pronounceable by putting a shin in the middle. That is to say, a shin, this is it. And then, we make them together, it makes yessu. You have a yod, you have an i that isn't pronounced. You have the shin that makes a she, the v, the calf that makes a wee. There was yessu, then it's the h that isn't pronounced. That makes yessu, obviously, if you put a shin in the middle. So it was Rochelin who invented that. And Gaston Bardet adopted it. So, I'm telling you, there's a... Who is this Gaston Mardet? Oh, he's half-mad. He's really half-mad. He knows a lot, he's very erudite, but then, he has mystical pretensions. In all his prefaces, he tells you that all he has to do is sit down for a little while in his armchair, on his couch, nice and relaxed, and then bam! He's in communication with the Holy Spirit, and he sees things. He explains it to you, so he has the tree diagram, so it's ready. You understand? He's like that. He invented this new numbering system starting with 26, which doesn't correspond to my age yesterday at all. Anyway, he has arguments. He has arguments. I'm one of the great intellectuals who subscribe to the famous journal Epignosis, so you might speak if I'm invited. Epignosis, which is a Gnostic journal, the worst kind of ultra-modern, written by high-flying academics, it's an extremely dangerous thing. Very, very dangerous.
Does the number of the beast, Afocalypse, mean anything about improvement? Well, yes, the number of the beast, it's been tried many times. We compare it, and we often come across things concerning our Lord Jesus Christ. Because, once again, for the same reason, he took on all the sins of humanity. So obviously, we understand that in a certain sense, we find evil in him. But we mustn't... if that were all there was to it, we could conclude that there is a mixture of good and evil in God. But there's more to it than that. That's why in the Book of Revelation, Saint John clearly says that those who have understanding should understand what the Spirit says to the churches. Because you need understanding to do that. And what is understanding? Well, it's the ability to distinguish. And the fundamental distinction is the distinction between good and evil. You know, this definition of the gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom unites, understanding distinguishes, counsel selects what has been distinguished, fortune maintains the cohesion of the parts, piety binds together, knowledge explains, and fear relates to death which decomposes. I learned that when I was very young, and I knew how to stay. It's a definition that serves me well. So intelligence distinguishes. Well, I distinguish good from evil. And so there, in that machine, of the tent, we landed on our feet because we distinguished good from evil. At a certain point, we arrived at a point where we say "Ah, we can't go any further." So, let's search, let's distinguish good from evil. There can be no evil in God, we know that, not in that way, but elsewhere. So, that's how it is. There you have it. That's it. So we commented intelligently, because we know the things of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's what made us intelligent in the patristic sense of the word, well, in that sense of the word. They don't have that intelligence. They don't recognize Jesus Christ as the Son of God. So, obviously, they can't apply this concept of redemption. They don't believe in it. Well, anyway, these are digressions that are... But still, having experienced it once in one's life, that's not a bad thing to know that it exists. So, that's it for the Tserouf. Isn't that right? So, generally speaking, the Kabbalists applied methods, therefore, matrices of the notaricuм and of the Temurah, without intelligence, as Saint John asks, isn't that right? And because he didn't have the key. Because he didn't have the key.
So, the midrashim were written during the Gaonic period, right? Ah, you were asking me about the Gaonic period? Well, it begins at the time of the Egyre, in 622. That's right, you see, that's roughly those times. Began during the period of Ain. The midrashim, right, were written during that period. So, I'd like to get back to the period, let's consider it over, the Gaonic period, when there were the Babylonian exiles. And now we come to the period that has been called the Merkabar period. Because the Jews have several mystical methods, have several methods of contemplation, right? As we have several, don't we? There's what's called, among Christians, the mysticism of essence, and then nuptial mysticism. These are two mystics that are both practiced. There's one that, for my part, I prefer to the other, but nuptial mysticism is certainly the more canonical. But the mysticism of essence was practiced by those called the Renans, the Renan mystics. There are Renan mystics who are very bad, but then again, there are some who are good, like, for example, the toilette. The toilette. The toilette. The toilette. And even the author of The Imitation of Christ, who apparently also practiced this mysticism of essence. So then, the Jews have several methods of meditation. And this one is the Merkaba method, which means the method of the chariot, it's the chariot of God. Merkaba, M-E-R-K-A-B-A, the mysticism of the Merkaba, M-E-R-K-A-B-A. So it's a method of contemplation that consists of reflecting on the chariot of fire of God, isn't it? It's Ezekiel's chariot of fire, Ezekiel's chariot. So we force ourselves, we stir our minds to reflect on Ezekiel's chariot of fire, the chariot of fire that carried Ezekiel to heaven, right? He saw God in a chariot of fire.
And to understand its context, we must compare it to what is called Bereshitian mysticism. Bereshitian mysticism is the mysticism of the creation narrative. Bereishit, those are the first words. Bereishit means beginning, it means commencement, in the beginning. They are the first words of Genesis. And so, the mystics of the Old Law meditated primarily on this method, on this book of creation. And then later, during the exile, you see, during the exile, no, during the early days of the Diaspora, they meditated on the chariot of fire. Well, that's a second phase of their mysticism, isn't it? Finally, they applied these processes from the Gemara and then from the Tzeruf, which became tools for meditation for them, and they turned them into methods of meditation. So instead of meditating like we do on concepts, on the love of God, on easier things, where the soul expands, they meditated on their numbers, on their combinations, on things like that. And they developed methods of meditation, called Tseruf. And then, during this period of meditation, which they called the "Chariot of Fire"—because, obviously, one can see sparks with all of this, I think—that is to say, sparks that allude to something—a number of books refer to this period, which you might want to note down, because we've already discussed them a bit, especially following the work of Sholem, a professor at the University of Jerusalem, and who greatly explored these questions of Jєωιѕн mysticism.
So, first, there are what are called the Hekalot. Hekalot. H-E-C-H-A-L-O-T-H. H-E-C-H-A-L-O-T-H. The Hekalot means the palaces. So, there are two Hekalot. There's the lesser, the lesser, and the greater Hekalot, because it's feminine. The lesser and greater Hekalot. And then there's, we'll talk about this a little bit. It's the description of the angel Metatron. Ah yes. It's the angel, Meta, next to, Tron, the throne. Yes, yes. Metatron is the angel who stands beside the throne of God. He was meditating on this. So, Metatron, using Kabbalistic methods, they found 70 names for him. Just for him. Well, you see, you get the idea. I'm all for it, but well... It's mysticism if you like, but it's mostly just brain-twisting, I think. Anyway, he's the one who stands beside the throne. But ultimately, the one standing next to the throne is often the one who wants to take its place. So, me, Metatron, when I see Metatron somewhere, I'm very wary, even with 70 names. So, it's the... well, the skullcaps, we understand that. Metatron, he stands in the palaces, the small ones, the large ones, we understand the flow of thought.
And then, at that same time, isn't it, the mysticism of the Merkava corresponds to another book called the Shirkoma. So, in short. S-H-I-U-R, further on, K-O-M-A. The Shirkoma simply means the measurement of the body. The measurement of the body because this mystic, who wrote this book, he measured the body of God. And he says that, deep down, what he's saying isn't stupid. He says that, deep down, he's like us, but on a larger scale. He gave measurements, he gave figures, but he doesn't specify the unit he's using, so these figures are useless. And then, he also meditated a lot on the demiurge, because the agnostic demiurge was starting to filter through among the Jews. And then, this Jew, who wrote the Churkoma treatise, it's a small treatise that isn't a... He quotes it.
And then, around the same time, still belonging to the Merkaba mystical movement, came a much more important book, the Bahir. It's a short treatise of 60 pages, containing midrashim, mystical interpretations. So, this is starting to become contemplative mysticism. That's definitely more serious in a way. It's a Provençal compilation of meditations and perhaps visions. Now, as for the visions, I can't guarantee they're good at all. One might even think that if they have a good starting point, a good intention, it's obvious that in such conditions of meditation, the devil must have gotten involved. Because when you're not defended by the Church, I don't see what he could defend. In the past, yes, the ѕуηαgσgυє did defend, but since it's no longer defended by... I don't see what could prevent them from falling into the mystical pit. So, the book Bahir is a very well-known book. It's a Provençal compilation. It's already more, you see, Palestinian. These are no longer people from Palestine or Babylonia. In what way is the book Bahir a compilation? It is a compilation in that it contains, under the Jєωιѕн name of Midot, the equivalent of the aeons and archons of Platonic Gnostic philosophy. And especially of Plotinian, Neoplatonic philosophy. So he meditates on the aeons. There are already aeons and archons. You see, pagan gnosis begins to return, in his meditations, to Jєωιѕн mysticism, to Jєωιѕн contemplation proper. He is no longer content with the Merkaba, things like that. These aeons, archons, and these Midots, aren't they, hypostatized divine attributes. Divine attributes that are taken out of God and given a semi-independent existence. The Midotes of the Book of Bayr are mediating spirits, intermediary entities between God and the cosmos.
These definitions are provided by mystical inspiration. So we will find Midotes in the Book of Bayr, in another form, under another name, in a more important treatise from the so-called Merkaba mystical period, which completed this method: the famous Zefer Yetzirah. So the Zefer Yetzirah means the Book of Formation. We thus arrive at the last important book of the Merkaba period. The Sefer Yetzirah means book, doesn't it? And then Yetzirah is Y-E-T-S-I-R-A. Y-E-T-S-I-R-A. The Sefer Yetzirah means the Book of Formation. In short, it means the Book of Creation. This is the story of creation. It's a kind of exam, if you will. Written, well, this one was written between the 3rd and 4th centuries. So you see, I made a slight mistake, I jumped the gun a bit. You were asking me for dates earlier. The Sefer Yetzirah, which concludes the Merkaba mysticism, and therefore between the 3rd and 4th centuries, so I was off by at least two centuries. That's to tell you, that's to give you a measure of my intelligence. But anyway, it's a short docuмent, the Sefer Yetzirah, with a style that is both pompous and laconic, ambiguous and dogmatic. That's not my opinion, it's Cholens'. Therefore, I repeated it exactly as he said it. The main topic is the elements of the world which are summarized in the Hebrew alphabet. That's precisely what we've just seen: the elements of the world summarized in the Hebrew alphabet which, consequently, can be understood as a basis for meditation. So, the Hebrew alphabet contains 10 numbers and 22 letters. It is these 10 numbers and these 22 letters that constitute the 32 paths of wisdom. So, for now, it's not complicated. Thank you. 32 paths of wisdom according to the Sefer Yadzira. That is to say, there are 32 ways in which divine wisdom has expressed itself. It's not a case of "Questioning Thomas," but it is reasoning nonetheless. The Sefer Yadzira thus reveals the meaning of the 22 letters, but it focuses primarily on the ten numbers.
These ten numbers, that is, the first ten letters from Halev to Iodine, are considered signs, the names of the ten numerical beings living in God. There are ten numerical beings, ten living numbers that live in God. And these living numbers that live in God are the Zephyrot. So, I haven't had time to write about the Zephyrot for you yet, but I will in a future post. We may come back to this later. It's important to become familiar with these names, this arrangement of the Zephyrot. We find here the Midotes of the Book of Bair, which have become more precise, haven't they? So, from that moment on, the Zephyrot have had an absolutely permanent vitality. And even now, we talk about them. I recently bought a book on Freud. He is depicted in front of a blackboard of university professors. And on this blackboard, there are the Zephyrots. The Zephyrots are spirits, the ten spirits emanating from God. They are ten divine hypostases, if you will. Well, on the board, I should represent them for you. And so, I wonder if I shouldn't do it right away. Because it's a bit of a nuisance, because I'll have to take a... Well, I'll do it. I'll do it, because otherwise, we'll never get anywhere. Only, I'll erase this one. He's the notaricone, okay? Thank you. There you go.
First, at the head of everything, we put the anzof. But he's not one of the Zephyrots. The anzof means infinity. Ain Sof, it starts with an aleph. Ansof means infinity. Or sometimes they translate it as in itself, as the self. But it means infinity. And then, below it, the first Zephirot, or rather, the first Zephirot, Zephira, no, the first Zephira is Keter. K-E-T-H-E-F, which means the crown. It means the crown. Then, on the left, comes Binah, which means intelligence. And then, Chorma, H-O-C-H-M-A, Chorma, which means wisdom. And then comes Geburah and Gedulah, which respectively mean severity and clemency. Below it, they place Tiferet, I think it's Tiferet, yes. It's Tiferet, which means beauty. Tiferet, which means beauty. Then they place Rode, which means glory. Then Netsha, which means triumph. Netsha, which means triumph. Netsha, like that. Netsha, or Netsha, yes. Wait, I think it can be written another way, because I wrote it phonetically, but they write it like this. S-H-Netsha, and it ends with an H, because it's emphatic at the end. So, Rode and Netsha, and then, Yezode, Yezode, Yezode, and then, Melkut, a name you know well, since it's found in Melchizedek, which means kingship. Thank you. Yezod means foundation.
So we can take Keter, which means the crown, Rohrma, wisdom, Binah, understanding, Geburah, severity, Gedula, mercy, Tiferet, beauty, Hode, glory, Netsha, triumph, Yezod, foundation, but it costs kingship. So to all of this, they will give combinations, that is to say, they will connect all of this. So they connect them first to link things externally, they make an external connection to form a whole like this, and they will form a connection like this as well. And then they will connect everything to differ from beauty. So you have this, that, that, that, that, and that. There you go. So there are other connections too, but they complicate everything and they are rare. It must be said that they are rare. And so this is one thing, this will correspond to different divine worlds. But this construction between the different worlds, it's a later, late construction, that doesn't come from the Zesphere of Izira. It comes from other Jєωιѕн mystics who added this further. So there is the divine world of emanation. We'll mark it. The divine world of emanation. You have a world of initiation that goes up to here. And then you have the world of formation, Izira, by the way, which is called Izira, which simply excludes Melkut, which simply excludes kingship. So that's the world of formation. And then this, that's the world of action. There you go. That's how he divides them. And so this is what's called the Ten Ephirot. He's been referring to this since the time of the book Bair right up to the present day. There you have it, it's a trademark. When you see mention of the Ephirot, that's correct. And you could almost say the opposite. That is to say, when you don't see any mention of any zephira, you see, you can almost be certain that it's not really Jєωιѕн. I think I can say that. But in any case, when you see this, that's clearly Jєωιѕн. My book on Jung—well, not about Jung, but about Freud—I was astonished when I saw this. I thought to myself, this is a real signature.
And then they modeled this on the human body. That is to say, they created, they superimposed, a schematic man, a kind of robot, giving him a head at Keter, a crown, and placing his feet at the same elbow. And then the rest is distributed among the arms, the elbow, the buttocks, the chest. Only then, since these parts didn't fit anywhere, did they place them for the man, so for the man it's particular, they put Chorma here and Bina there. I put an H and a B. Because it seems more judicious to them to concentrate wisdom at the forehead. This is the head, this is the forehead, and then this is the chest, you see. And so this man, like this, along with these Zephyrots, is what they call Adam Kadmon. That is to say, Adam Kadmon, that is to say, the universal man. That's what they call the universal man. That is to say, the typical man, if you will, the human archetype, that's it. They are the Zephyrots. That's how they set things up. Let's get back to it; we left off, didn't we, with the book of the Zephyr Yetzirah, which was of enormous importance. The Zephyr Yetzirah is as important as the Zohar, since it is the source of the ten Zephyrots. You see, in the book Bair, they had already begun to talk about the Middot, but the Zephyr Yetzirah really addressed the question in a masterful way, I don't know. We didn't have to change anything, except, as I said, to add the four worlds I just mentioned. I should probably finish up.
After that, we have another period of mysticism. This period begins with Abraham Abulafia. Abraham Abulafia's doctrine is also Kabbalistic and prophetic. So, he was in Safed at the beginning of... around 1200. Abraham Abulafia in 1200. He started to establish a school, a school of mysticism, you could say. But for them, mysticism was something that was induced, you see. They had methods to induce it. There was even one, Cholem, who said it wasn't complicated: he drank wine. Then, he would receive a mystical experience, a particular order. I have these diplomas; you find real gems. So, there was a group of mystics who had founded a school there. And he had real theories of enlightenment, supernatural enlightenment, with invocations, with... It was a school of mysticism, it was Abraham Abulafia. So, he wrote some books, but there's no point in talking about them, because they're not very remarkable. It's mainly his school; he founded a school after him. And then, he went to visit the Pope in 1280. He had made an appointment, but unfortunately, the Pope died the day before. So, he couldn't see the Pope. So, we're discovering—this is especially relevant now—connections between Abulafia's doctrine and Buddhism. Because he has, you know, a doctrine of the knots of the soul. Because the soul forms knots, obviously, I understand perfectly what he means by that. But anyway, he lists them, he's a bit like the yoga practitioners, isn't he, who list the chakras. And so, there are connections between the doctrine of Abraham Abulafia and Buddhism. They are methods of induced enlightenment. That's what you really need to understand. Anyway, Abraham Abulafia was considered a spiritual guide for a very long time. And then, you have another story. But don't write down the name, because I'm not sure about what I'm saying. These are summaries from Sholem's book. And I've written down so much that I can't really tell you everything.
Okay. So, what happens to the monotheism of the ѕуηαgσgυє in all this? Well, it takes a real hit. After that, we fall into hemanatism, you understand. So, from that moment on, a significant discord arose, which still persists to some extent, within Rabbinic Judaism... The rabbis didn't want to go along with it? Yes. Yes, Rabbinic Judaism didn't want to go along with all of this. It finally came around because of the Zohar, a book you might see this afternoon. Because of the Zohar, because the Zohar is of such high literary quality that the rabbis were obliged to incorporate it into the liturgy. But before that, it didn't go along at all, and there were disputes between the mystics, like Abraham Abulaphia, and then the rabbis. Because, well, it led to pantheism. And the rabbis fought against pantheism for a long time. Now, they've more or less come to terms with it, but they fought against pantheism for a long time. Well, we'll leave it at that for the moment. I apologize for being so muddled, but frankly, it has to be said that with the Kabbalah, it's difficult to be completely clear.
So, we'll return to Abraham Abulafia, whom we left rather abruptly this morning. He distinguished himself, you see, primarily through a figurative lens—I'll show you what I meant. To summarize what I've done with this period of Jєωιѕн mysticism, you see, Abraham Abulafia, the first of the Sephardic period, that is to say, the Spanish period. And he comes after the Gaonic period, doesn't he, when there was the Babylonian exile. This was a period marked by a number of publications, the most important being the Book of Bayr and especially the Book of Sirach. Before that, there were the small and large skullcaps, and then there was the Shiur-koma. The Book of Bayr begins to enumerate the externalized divine perfections. Then the Book of Sirach brings this kind of metaphysical evolution to a close by listing and naming the ten ephirot, which have remained unchanged to this day. They haven't been altered. And then, at the end of this Gaonic period, which is a period of Palestine and then Babylon, comes the Spanish period, during which almost all Jєωιѕн productions were Spanish. So Abraham Abulafia is one of the first of the Sephardic period. Sephardic means Spain in Hebrew. Where did the name Sephardim come from, the Jews who took refuge in Spain? While the αѕнкenαzιm come from Askenaz, which means Germany. They are those who took refuge in Germany. So Abraham Abulafia died. He was particularly known for his techniques of ecstatic meditation, wasn't he, as a means of knowing God directly? That was his main focus. He founded a school, he established followers, he educated followers. And certainly, he had a very, very significant influence due to the large number of young people who passed through his hands.
And the Zohar is also a Spanish production. The Zohar is a large, extremely well-known book by Simeon Bar Yochai. Or Yochai. It's quite a mouthful, to put it bluntly. Simeon Bar Yochai. It has sometimes been said, particularly by Sholem, that it was probably another Jєωιѕн mystic named Moses de León. But anyway, I'm going with the traditional formula; the Zohar is generally attributed to Simeon Bar Yochai. So the Zohar takes its starting point from the ten epithets of the Sefer Yetzirah. That's the starting point. And the author, Simeon Bar Yochai, retains the concept of Ansof, which we discussed this morning, that is, the infinite or the in-itself. The in-itself has been translated recently because the word "self" is the one that's currently fashionable. In short, it means the infinite. The concept of Ansof is nominally maintained, but the tendency toward pantheism is terribly accentuated by the Zohar. Magnificently so, because this man is a first-rate poet. And he wrote hymns which, as I told you this morning, have entered the rabbinic liturgy. The ten ephirot are now considered not as creative numbers, but as chronological phases of creation. Chronological phases of creation. He maintains the concept expressed in the Sefer Yetzirah, but he adds the ten ephirot as phases in the chronology of creation.
At the same time, Ansof is considered the void within God. This allows Simeon Bar-Yohai to cross the barrier of the rabbinate. The rabbinate did not want to relinquish the concept of creation as Ais Nehidro. And so, to make him swallow it, Simeon Bar-Yohai had the idea—I don't know if it was his own, because I believe he took it from the East; it's an old Eastern concept. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. of an inner void within God, a void in which God created. So, he didn't create Ex-Nio, since he created within his inner void. That's quite a way of turning things around. It's a connection, then, with Eastern doctrines. Moreover, that's what led Sholem, a great Jєωιѕн theologian still living today, because he died only three years ago, who was a professor in Jerusalem, to say: Well, he called the doctrine of the Zohar the theosophy of the Zohar, or the gnosis of the Zohar. You see, that's exactly it. So, it is from this divine inner void that all degrees of existence emanated, beginning with the first zephira, that is, the crown, the divine crown, and ending with the tenth zephira, which is the human kingship of the Messiah, the awaited Messiah. Kingship comes at a price, doesn't it? So, all of this comes from the inner void of God. Only, they had to get the rabbinate to accept it. The rabbinate didn't want to relinquish the identity of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to whom they were very attached. And if they had been a little clever, they would have understood that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, well, that's the Trinity. Abraham, the father Abraham, Isaac, who sacrificed his sons, and then Jacob, who is fruitful and proliferates—it is the Holy Spirit who is fruitful and proliferates. They should have thought of that, but it was the Christians who provided the key to the Old Testament.
So, Simeon Barriorai handled it very skillfully, and he multiplied expressions like this one, for example: "The abyss becomes visible through the breach of existence." I haven't explored what that means, but anyway, it works very well. The abyss becomes visible through the breach of existence. So, we can say that it's true if the abyss remains a personal abyss, which is the case with our Creator God; it is an abyss, since He is infinite. But that's wrong if the abyss becomes an undifferentiated entity. Obviously, according to the Christian formula, we are enlightened by all this, aren't we? We know very well that it is the Word that made visible what was invisible. So, obviously, God is an invisible abyss, but he was made visible by the Son. It is the Son who makes visible what is invisible. He also makes the rabbinate accept the inevitable disappearance of creation, and if not, we will say so. So, the principle of the Church and the ѕуηαgσgυє is that God brought the world into being where there was nothing. And this is a notion we absolutely need. We cannot be too grateful to the Fathers of the Church, who maintained this notion of creation ex nihilo mordicus. They rendered a service not only to the Church, but to the whole world. Because if we don't make this initial distinction, there are no distinctions left. Because everything flows from one to the other. There are no more barriers, no more distinctions. Consequently, there are no more definitions. We don't realize this. But when we examine Eastern doctrines, especially as they are taught, not here, but there, in the East, we realize that Western thought is infinitely clearer, infinitely clearer, more manageable, and more intelligible.
Only the Zohar, like Gnosticism and Hinduism, posits nothingness in God. So, for Simeon Bar-Yohai, isn't that right, God contains an inner nothingness? It will now be easy to maintain, at least in principle, the concept of creation ex nihilo, by saying that the nothingness from which creation entered tangible existence is the inner nothingness of God. God created the world ex nihilo, that is, by drawing it from his own nothingness, from his own abyss, and consequently from his own darkness. So the world of the Ephirot, of the Sefer Yetzirah, is it not this divine world of ten-digit numerical creations, this world of the Ephirot was perfectly suited to serve as the point of crystallization, to serve as the catalyst for tangible creation? It is the ten Ephirot that serve as the catalyst for tangible creation. But then, tangible creation became an inner emanation of God. There is no longer any discontinuity between the creator and the creature. One can move from one to the other, without intermediary, and consequently without a mediator. There is no longer any need for a mediator. And so, in their meditation, they deprive themselves of the notion, of the necessity of an intermediary, and therefore, consequently, the very notion of messiah fades from their minds, since they no longer need a mediator. Since everything fits together like Russian nesting dolls, well, yes. So, the notion of the mediator's role has thus been diluted in the ten ephirot, as if collectivized in the ten ephirot, which are therefore creative numbers, uttered by God to create his world. So, in the Zohar, all of this is magnificently expressed. In a poignant, extremely poetic lyricism, it's reminiscent of the poems of Arab poets, exactly that kind, isn't it? A pantalism imbued with intense religiosity, moreover, because these were people who are, the Jews are, intensely religiosity, as much as we are, or sometimes even more, but at least as much as Christians. And so, he put this religiosity at the service of this kind of false principle, which retains devotional terms, the terms of rabbinic theism. And so, the rabbinate, after having struggled its whole life, I mean, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, for as long as it could, for a hundred years, maybe 150 years, I don't know, finally admitted hymns from the Zohar into the official liturgy. And this especially among the Germans, that is to say, among the Racists.
In the Zohar, we find another very important concept: the concept of Adam Kadmon. Adam Kadmon is the application of the ten ephirot to the human body. So, we're going to reveal Adam Kadmon to you. He's not particularly handsome, but anyway, Kadmon—oh yes, I forgot to write it, I must write it, there it is, with an N, Adam Kadmon. I don't know what it means, actually. Kadmon; I've never seen it explained, even though I've read quite a few books, I've never understood what it meant. So, the limbs of the body are likened to spiritual numbers of the uncreated abyss of the ten ephirot. He is therefore the archetypal man, the prototype man, the archetype man. How is it that there is a crown, which is earth, and then who has kingship, that is to say, support on the earth, doesn't that cost a lot? Naturally, we also find in the Zohar descriptions of the Shekinah, that is to say, the glorious vision of God. But since this isn't specific to the Zohar, I haven't talked about it much. So there you have it, we're done with the Zohar, but what I really wanted to tell you was about this matter of the ten ephirot, considered as phases of creation, and the ten ephirot applied to the body of Adam Kadmon. Now, in literature, Adam Kadmon is always presented in a mysterious way; you're never told what it means, but in reality, that's it, they are the ten ephirot applied to the human body. It's not more difficult than that, but of course, the commentary on all of this is endless. So, they comment, they delve into psychology—quite in-depth psychology, actually—I won't say what we haven't seen. And then, they apply this to somewhat analogous processes, induced mystical processes, somewhat analogous to Buddhism, concerning the untangling of the soul's knots. But consider that having knots requires vines, like in Buddhism. So, these knots are precisely constituted by all these centers, which are knots. So, they talk endlessly about these things. They manage to recognize themselves in them; I don't understand how.
So, we've finished with the period of Farad, of the major currents of Jєωιѕн mysticism, with Abraham Abulaphia and then Simeon Bar-Joray. We arrive at a new period where the hut has become even more enriched, but enriched with not traditional, but recent mystical elements. That's what we need to understand. All of this is recent mystical information added to itself, which has essentially grown into a custom rather than a revealed tradition, of course. And this is the Safed period, with figures like Caro, Cordovero, Isaac, and Louria. Now, Caro, he was the founder of a school. He founded a school in Safed because, at that time, the Jews had been expelled from Spain. So, new ones needed to find a place to live. They returned to Palestine. And in Safed, there was thus a great mystical center of asceticism. So, naturally, the first phase of this mysticism wasn't reprehensible. It's the phase of all mysticisms worldwide: asceticism. Because that's where you have to start; otherwise, it doesn't work. So, you start with asceticism.
And then, he had this student, who, incidentally, surpassed the master quite quickly: a certain Cordovero, who developed what he calls a speculative cabal. I see why that term was applied to him; the others are speculative too. So he undertook a comprehensive study—he was a great scholar—he conducted a comprehensive study of all the Kabbalistic writings that had been published up to that point: the Sefer Bahir, the Sefer Yadzira, the Zohar which had just been published, and then the Tikkunim, which are also writings, more or less mystical commentaries, accounts of visions, and then the Targums, which were beginning to reappear—that is to say, Chaldean paraphrases, that is to say, broad translations, free translations into the Chaldean language, into the Chaldean language. Since these are not literal translations, they are translations with incorporated commentaries, right? Obviously, many traditional notions, Kabbalistic notions, had been mixed in with them, and so the Targums are considered elements of Kabbalah. So there are two of them, there is one Targum d'Onkelos and then a Targum of Jonathan—I don't know how they differ—and then this Cordovero, he studied this philosophy extensively, this metaphysics of emanation, and he found an extraordinary system, it's the zim-zum system. So here's what he says: in the beginning there was only God, wasn't there? Then he thought to himself, to create something, I have to step back. So he knows, God withdrew, withdrew, I know, probably from the space he occupied before. In short, he concentrated on himself, and thus left a void. It's a little different from the theory of Simeon Bar-Yohai, but in fact, it's his own theory, Cordovero's theory, it's the zim-zum theory, that is to say, the theory of the back-and-forth movement, but So, in his withdrawal, God left in this void, God left divine traces, and it is these traces that brought about material creation. So that's his system of the zim-zum, but it's reappearing now, we don't dare call it that anymore, because it really sounds a bit ridiculous, but I've seen Gnostic developments expanding on this idea, the theory of God's withdrawal. So another point from Cordovero is the three sources of primordial light, he found that the first three Zephyrots had a particular virtue, I don't know if it's through mimicry of the Trinity, but it probably played a significant role, and he thought that Keter, Horma, and Binah should be considered as particular Zephyrots, because they contained the triple source, therefore, of primordial light. And this distinction between the first three Zephyrots has been maintained; now they cling to it a great deal, because, as is the case in all religions, we don't know where they stand, they all have their eyes fixed on the Christian religion, and when they can imitate it, well, they do, which is what happened, by the way, with the hypostases in India. Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva were isolated not so long ago, it was around the beginning of the 18th century; before that, no one talked about it. But only out of necessity to argue with the Christians did they also create a trinity in their system, but before that, there was a system, somewhat like the Zephyrots, where there were ten or twenty of them, because back then in India, they saw money.
Then came an extremely curious man, a true adventurer, named Isaac Luria, who also contributed to the development of the Kabbalah. Isaac Luria was Cordovero's successor at the Safed school. He was much less rational than Cordovero, much less scholarly, but he was much more mystical. And he established degrees of initiation, which is very important, because in the Jєωιѕн world, I don't believe anything like that existed before. It existed in the Gnostic world, of course, but among the Jews, he created initiations like that. I don't know if it continued, but in his time, he did it. So the secret lay in the secret of the invocation formulas, which were taken from Holy Scripture, because these are formulas that have power over demons, they are divine formulas, so, they have power over demons, they are invoked, exactly like sorcerers who recite prayers in Latin. It's the same principle, it acts on demons, on spirits. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And so, he worked extensively on the Tetragrammaton, and from it he derived divine names. And he was the originator of these divine names that would become so familiar to the Christian Kabbalists of the Renaissance. The Christian Kabbalists of the Renaissance were extremely fascinated by these divine names. And this largely stems from Isaac Luria. And so Isaac Luria sought to address the belief that he himself was the Messiah. Or at least a precursor to the Messiah. But he didn't succeed in making people believe it. But in fact, he did a great deal of work in that direction. And in practice, false Messiahs would appear very soon after his death. In fact, there was at least one who would be a false Messiah whose adventure would end with his... After receiving many visits from Jews from Germany, Spain, and elsewhere. It caused quite a stir. And finally, he converted to Islam.
So I think we're done with the Safed period, aren't we? With Isaac Luria. We've finished with the major currents of Jєωιѕн mysticism. Whose works became incorporated into tradition and Kabbalah. We are going to establish the modern element. Since the Oral Torah, or the so-called Oral Torah of the 70 Years... The ancient one, supposedly educated by Moses, right? To serve as the basis for primitive Kabbalah, the so-called revealed Kabbalah. I don't really believe that story. For me, it's what keeps happening among the Jews. Kabbalah has constantly grown. And when you take stock of it now, the docuмents containing it are enormous. It's a somewhat similar phenomenon that occurred with the Apostolic Tradition. It's diffused in the Church Fathers, in early Christian docuмents, in the exurgy of the first centuries, etc. The Apostolic Tradition is also diffuse. But Kabbalistic tradition is even more so. I'm quoting something I found in the introduction to Living Thought in the Middle Ages. It's a book from 1947. Kabbalah is one of the products that includes, besides ancient Jєωιѕн esotericism, the complete body of тαℓмυdic and Midrashic writings, as well as almost all the theological and philosophical speculations of the ʝʊdɛօ-Arabic period. We could even go further, since we have gone further, we've gone as far as the Safed period. So, in 1493, there was the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. At that time, there were a great many conversions, because they didn't know how to cope. Some stayed behind after converting. Some did so for strategic reasons, others, sometimes sincerely, we don't know. Conversions are very difficult to ascertain. Converted Jews are an intellectual category that shouldn't be overlooked, because they wrote books. And besides, the popes, as Catholics, took great care of them, didn't they?
So, there was a famous Mitridates who brought Pico della Mirandola a large part of his docuмentation. Now, this Mitridates was also called William of Sicily. He was also a Jєωιѕн convert. It was he who revealed the Ephirot to Pico della Mirandola, which Pico della Mirandola didn't know, because, obviously, all of that consisted of books written either in Hebrew, or later in Yiddish, well, in Hebrew, or sometimes in Spanish. And Pico della Mirandola, of course, it was his converted Jєωιѕн Mitridates who brought him the revelation of the Ephirot. Pico della Mirandola pondered this, and he was filled with wonder at this thing, which he had never seen before. There was another one too, a converted Jew named Paul of Heredia. I don't know if he has anything in common with our poet, who is frequently mentioned among the inspirations of Christian Kabbalists. When one takes stock of the inspirations of Christian Kabbalists, one always finds this Paul of Heredia who wrote the Corona Regis. There was also a converted Jew named Sixtus of Vienna. He lived from 1520 to 1569. He led an extraordinarily eventful life. He was a converted Jew who became a Franciscan. Then he was condemned to be burned at the stake by the Inquisition, but he wasn't burned, because he was saved at the last minute by a protective prelate. He then became a Dominican friar. He then enjoyed the protection of 5 and 5. And he wrote The Holy Library, a book that is a bibliography called The Holy Library, a catalog in which he nevertheless distinguishes between good and bad Kabbalah. You see, a converted Jew who still distinguishes between good and bad Kabbalah. He's the type of converted Jew who says to himself, there are still things to be found in there, I don't quite know where they are, but not everything is bad, not everything is to be rejected, because there are still pearls that come from revelation. And that's true, that's what everyone who knew him says. It's there... It's there... An unbelievable mess, but you mustn't throw it out entirely, you have to search for it.
Then there was one named Todros a Coen, I think he must have been of Spanish origin. He was a well-established doctor in Florence, with a wife, child, horses, and servants, as they say in his field of biology. And then at 50, all of a sudden, he started having visions that led him to convert to, and I quote, "the religion he had fought against." The religion he fought against was ours, which he had fought against. So he says an angel showed him the Kabbalistic connections between IHS and the Tetragrammaton. Jesus, the Savior of Mankind, isn't that right, between that and the supposedly unpronounceable Tetragrammaton. So this angel showed him the connections between the two, and that converted him. And I don't know what kind of life he led, but he probably led a very... I don't know how he died. So, let's mention another one: Giovanni Paolo Eustachio. Giovanni Paolo Eustachio. In his various writings, he strives to rediscover the concept of the divine Trinity in the Old Testament. Now, these works are interesting. For all these converts from Judaism, the ancient Kabbalah is good and usable. One can even transpose the methods of gematria, notaricone, and temurah into Latin and especially into Greek. Well, I'd like to see that. They did it. I don't know if they arrived at any sensational revelations. I noted a reflection in a traditionalist journal, one of our journals, I can't remember which one, but it's magnificent, which was discussing precisely these things, a gematria, notarikone, and witness, and which said, "The Kabbalists are a Montcroisé club pretending to be the Faculty of Sciences." It's truly excellent.
So, the Magisterium took charge of it, and Gregory XIII created a college to care for converted Jews. By spirit—the words no longer come to me—pastoral, by spirit, pastoral. Then, Christians would marvel at the hitherto unknown Hebrew contribution. At that time, at the time of the Renaissance, Judaism would become a real craze and a real fad. There were two themes that greatly excited them at that time. These are the themes of the non-divine beings, and these are the themes of the so-called zepheroids. I've listed the non-divine beings for you here. There are ten non-divine beings; I don't know what they can make of them. Anyway, we know them, that's understood. So, yes, they spell them out, they assign a value to each letter. And it's even frightening to see the... So, it still remains within the analogy of faith, but obviously, it remains within the analogy of faith. But it's inconsistent, in my opinion; well, some people like it. The non-divine beings, right? There are ten classical ones, but some Kabbalists have derived up to 72 more from these ten names. And it seems that Saint Denis, the Areopagite, derived 45. But Saint Denis, the Areopagite, is a first-rate innovator of ideas. But we mustn't trust his vocabulary and all his solutions. First of all, he's not a Church Father, since we don't know who he is. You don't just hand out doctorates of the Church to people who may not even have... So we don't know who he is. So, we shouldn't get too carried away with Saint Denis, the Areopagite, because it's all well and good to explore ideas, but only if we study them a bit to see if they're usable.
And so, Rochelin drew a lot of inspiration from all of this in his "Des Verbos Mirifico," that is, on magnificent speech. How do you spell Rochelin? "Des Verbos Mirifico," how? Rochelin, R-E-U-C-H-L-I-N, Rochelin. But I'll give you his biography. He was a humanist who was born in Pforzheim, in the heart of Germany, it's in the heart of Germany now, of West Germany, and his name was "Fumeur," "Rauchen," which means "to smoke" in German, and "Rochelin" means "to smoke." So, he transposed his name into Greek, calling himself "Capnion." Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. His two main works are "De Arte Cabalistica," dedicated to Leo X, and "De Verbo Mirifico," dating from 1494. Here's an example of the speculation found in "De Arte Cabalistica." Each letter of the Tetragrammaton has a meaning. The letter "yod" represents 10, that is, the mathematical point and the diad, which is the end of all numbering. It's worth what it's worth. The letter "yod," well, 10, mathematical point and diad, the end of all numbering. This letter at the beginning of the Tetragrammaton signifies that God is the beginning and the end. Well, the "He" that comes after, the 5, signifies the union of God with nature. Well, the "Vot" that comes after signifies generation. The "Vot" in Hebrew, by the way, means generation, genealogy. So it represents generation. And then the second "He," which has a value of 5, is half of the dener, therefore it signifies mediation. This is the kind of Kabbalistic speculation found by Renaissance Christian Kabbalists. So the holy name of Jesus is none other than the Tetragrammaton, says Rochelin, to which a "Shin" has been added. We were talking about this this morning, weren't we? It's the only way to make the Tetragrammaton pronounceable. But then, the Tetragrammaton is no longer a Tetragrammaton. And then he is no longer aware of it, fortunately. And he called it the Pentagrammatone. The Tetragrammaton becomes the Pentagrammatone if you put it in the middle, right? In the middle, between the four letters, you separate them and add a "Shin." So, obviously, "Yehovah" becomes "Yezou." It's also Rochelin who likes to distinguish between the Bereshitic works and the works of the Merkabar. That's an intelligent distinction because it proves he understood that there were two successive mystical traditions in Israel. One in the Old Testament, which is what was called the Masor Bereshitic, and then the Masor Merkabar, which is the one we've been talking about, that is, the contemplation of Ezekiel's chariot of fire.
There's also a Kabbalist from the Renaissance who is well-known—yes, you can note him down, he's known in books that deal with this subject—but you know, he's not known to the general public. Augustin Justiniani, Justiniani, G-I-U-S-T-I-N-I-A-N-I, from 1470 to 1536. A devout Christian, drawn to Hebraism, he produced two main works: the Polyglot Psalter and the "Prayer Full of Piety to Almighty God," composed of 72 divine names in Latin and Hebrew. "Prayer Full of Piety to Almighty God," composed of 72 divine names in Latin and Hebrew. I saw the title; it's very beautiful, with a Renaissance-style frontispiece—you know, the columns, the portrait of the man wearing a cap—everything you need for a magnificent Renaissance book. Then there's another one who's often mentioned, Peter Galatin, who was also a religious figure. So, two other works as well, in which he uses Kabbalah for his arguments. "De arcanis catholici veritatis," "The Secrets of Catholic Truth," and then another book, "The Church Instituted, Deposed, and Restored." That's quite a crazy title. And then there's one who's better known, I think, or at least I believe so, because I'd already heard of him a little before studying all this, it's Cornelius Agrippa, who shouldn't be confused with Cornelius Alapideus, who is a scenatos and who is somewhat his successor, about 50 years later. We'll talk about Cornelius Alapideus later. So, Cornelius Agrippa, then, is a Renaissance philosopher, still somewhat cabalistic, "De occulta philosophica" and then "De incertitudine scientiarum" "On the Uncertainty of the Sciences." There was also a German abbot, a German Benedictine abbot, who was very curious, but he was a complete eccentric. His name was Tritem, and he wrote a book called "Steganography." Steganography, well, believe it or not, it's simply a treatise on automatic writing. So, in other words, a magical thing par excellence, right? There you have it, a Benedictine abbot, you know, on steganography, on automatic writing.
And then there was Guillaume Bostel. Guillaume Postel, who was born in Barenton—I think I made a mistake last time; I gave you the name Guillaume Postel for someone who wasn't him. So, to correct the record, here's the real biography of the real Guillaume Postel. The other one is someone whose name I've forgotten, but who lived at least a hundred years earlier. This Guillaume Postel lived from 1510 to 1581. He was born in Barenton, near Avranches, and he had an extremely fast writing speed, so much so that he was called the "tachygrapher." That is, in the style of a shorthand writer, since tachygraphers were, after all, shorthand writers. So he wrote a book called Deorbis Théré Concordia. He wrote it in three months; it's a book in several volumes. So this Guillaume Postel was very fast. And so he believed in his election and his mission. Guillaume Postel received his orders in the Society of Jesus, didn't he? But it soon became apparent that he fancied himself Pastor Angelicus, following the prophecies of Malachi that had just been published. So Saint Ignatius of Loli, still alive, went to see the fellow and gutted him. Well, then Postel fell under the sway of a mysterious Mother Jeanne who appeared to him after his death and told him that he was undergoing the Immutation. He had a vision of Mother Jeanne, who had died a few months earlier, let's say, and he underwent the Immutation. And then he physically felt—I'm not kidding—wearing a tracksuit. And then he felt himself becoming Cain restored. Cain, who was no longer a sinner at all and who was the son of the new Eve, that is to say, of Mother Jeanne. And so he summoned the local dignitaries to have them witness his transformation. And then he told them, "I am in such a state of mind that neither the satiety of food, nor the need to eat or drink, has any effect. Because almost all, almost all, the essence of food evaporates and dissipates so completely that barely a hundredth follows its natural course." So it was to tell them this that he gathered the local dignitaries. In vain, yes, indeed. So, this Guillaume Postel writes about the Zohar, he believes himself to be on a mission, whatever you want to call it, well, there you have it. But then he had disciples, Guillaume Postel. He had many disciples, people, yes, Lefèvre de la Borderie, another one named Blaise de Vigenère, gentlemen from Périgord, who became fanatical emanationists.
And then in England, he also had—I have to stop here—he also had a very important disciple, John Dee. Now, John Dee is directly at the origin of Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ, because he became one of the accepted masons of the operative lodges. So that's very important. He wrote Mona Syroglyphica, which is a very widely read book. Another disciple of Guillaume Postel was Heinrich Kunrat, a German, from 1560 to 1605. So 1605, you see, that brings us almost to 1614, the time of the Rosicrucian manifestos. Then there was Francis Bacon, whose New Atlantic we also need to talk about. One last word, but very quickly, you're talking about... what? Francis Bacon wrote New Atlantis. François or Francis Bacon, sometimes it's just Francis. Dictionaries list it as either one. So, New Atlantis is a utopia, meaning it's the story of an island called Ben Salem, which set out to conquer the world by establishing think tanks, banks, and an intelligence service. So, my friend, we think of England, and first of all, he was Chancellor of England. So, you see, he showed there what chancellors can think about when they're not performing their duties, and when they're in their offices having dreams like that. But it's quite curious, New Atlantis had a great deal of success, a lot of influence, a lot of influence. And then he also had as a disciple a certain Robert Flood, who is also an accepted Freemason.
So, there were reactions to all of this, because it didn't happen that way. There are many monasteries, there are many... The Magisterium reacted, but it couldn't fully react. So, there were reactions to all of this, because there were reactions to all of this. Because, moreover, we couldn't crack down on these things; these Jєωιѕн books had spread everywhere. We couldn't attack them because it would have required launching into an anti-Kabbalah campaign, getting involved in all these Gemara stories, all of that. I really realized it was impossible. I've put Adam, Anatole, Dicis, Arctos, and Messambria here; this is something we already find in Saint Cyprian and Saint Augustine. So you see, they had reasons to want to play around a bit with even the Latin terms, and I must say it doesn't prove much, but for my part, I like to dwell on this way of spelling out the word Adam. Because I find that finding in the word Adam the root of the conquest of the Earth in these four directions, I find that beautiful. There's Anatole. Anatole, yes. What did I put there? Anatole, yes. It's Anatole, yes, Anatoly is the chône of the long. Anatole, Dicis, that's the sunset. And then Arctos, that's right, and Messambria, that means like, it's the same word as Mezzanine. If you like, it's the middle, it's midday. Midday is when it's in the middle. No, we understand perfectly.
And so, there was one who reacted strongly. It was Cardinal Frederick Borromeo, who was the cousin of Saint Charles Borromeo. He was really... he told them, "Be careful, you're getting into trouble." And then there was another one who reacted too, whom I forgot to mention, well, it was the famous Cornelius who stoned them. Overall, he was very hostile, but he said, "Be careful, don't burn everything. Don't burn everything because there's still something there, things that are interesting." But overall, he was very, very hostile. Saying, "Be careful, you're getting into magic." That's what all the people were telling them. And then there was another one who was also very hostile, Rabanus Mordecai. So, I always end up in a terrible way, people finish. No, no, no, go on, go on, it's the phone, it has nothing to do with it. No, but it's fine, but do it myself, I mess up sometimes. Oh, really. It's time, right? No, it's at 5 o'clock. What? It's 5 o'clock. Well, yes, 5 o'clock. Well, it's... It's 5 o'clock to be done. Oh, really? Oh, yes. So, we can continue for a little while. Unless you have some questions for me. But I don't know if I'd be able to answer them, because, well, on things like that, I'm not very...
You were saying there were pearls in the cabin. Can you give us an example? That there were some? Pearls, things to be extracted from the hut. Ah, an example. I had some back in the day, yes. What could I cite as an example? I can't quite think of one. My Léon had some at the tip of his pen, because he was quite involved in those things. But you can believe him with complete confidence, my Léon, because he was so circuмspect, he was so wise, that he risked absolutely nothing that was outside the realm of the analogy of faith. And then, he told me that he had stayed at the source, at the abbey of the spring, even though he had really wanted to go back to the old Mass. But he said, but then I won't have my Jew anymore? Because there was a Jew at the source whose name was, I don't know, Bussmann or something like that. And he told me, but it's only when I'm embarrassed, which means, but he's very strong, you know. Yes, that's it, Goldstein. Yes, Goldstein, that's it, yes. And then he told me, he's very, very progressive. But anyway, about these things, you know, he's... And so, he stayed there because of his books and because of his fiery temperament. But he was very, very careful, well, Leo. I didn't like them, but well, those books, I don't know if you have them in... Oh, that's very good. I didn't say anything, I lent out dozens of those books. Finally, lending was a way of giving back, because people don't return books.
So, if you'd like me to read to you to finish, the cabalistic adventures, the messianic adventures of... I don't know if I can find it. What's it called again? The Messianic Adventures of... By Sabatai, Sabatai Zevi. He's a Jew from Solomon. But I wanted to, I gave you the summary. He's a Jew from Solomon who had passed himself off as the Messiah. He had traveled, he had been recognized as the Messiah by all the Jєωιѕн intelligentsia in... What remained of the Jєωιѕн community in Spain, in France, in Provence, isn't that right? And then in Germany, where they were numerous, and very circuмspect, because they weren't really Kabbalists, they were more like followers of Maimonides, you see, the Germans. So, they had made themselves known, really. And delegations were sent to him, and then... And then all of a sudden, I tell you, in Salonica, he withdrew to Thessaloniki, it was called Thessaloniki, and he converted to Islam. So, it was, I tell you, a terrible boom in... And that gave rise to German Hasidism. That is to say, purification through suffering, they suffered so much from it, that they said that... They even achieved results, but they wish they were Jєωιѕн to think things like that. Purification through suffering, through penance, and through evil. And there were those who said that doing evil was progress... it was advancing the path to the true Messiah. But they ended up doing this. They ended up deliberately doing evil to increase the dose of evil, you know, which is necessary for things to rebound. You get the idea. But I assure you, there were people like that. I don't know what else to tell you about the Kabbalah. The rest, I should have told you along the way. In all these schools, they were still waiting for the Messiah. Ah yes, in all these schools, they were still waiting for a Messiah. First of all, there was Rabbinic Judaism behind all of this. And Rabbinic Judaism only became Kabbalistic very recently. Now that the Kabbalah has stopped enriching itself with false mysticism, they have, if you will, codified it, more or less following Scholem, who, by the way... Scholem, is a rationalist. Scholem was a professor of Jєωιѕн history who was a rationalist and who truly codified the texts. And he was extremely involved in the publication of the тαℓмυd, for example. The French state even provided a copy of the тαℓмυd to all the Hebrew departments in France. It's worth millions. Scholem is dead. How? Scholem is dead. I was going to see one of his disciples at the University of Lyon, and I was looking forward to it. I thought, I'm going to see one of these great Jєωιѕн intellectuals. I was really looking forward to seeing him. I ended up with one of his zealots. Oh dear! A radical socialist, a Combes-style zealot, and on top of that, a far-left resistance fighter, you see, they don't take offense at French people during the Resistance because they weren't like the Dutch, who, etc. Oh, I said, listen to me, frankly, I don't think much of French people. And then I told him, if you prefer to go to Holland, nothing's stopping you. You might not be happy at all. The meeting ended very badly.
I actually wanted to ask him for information about Coptic because I'd sorted out this Crombette affair. You know, you might have... Well, this edition of Genesis by Crombette, which uses, to make a new translation of Genesis, which uses Coptic as an intermediary. But instead of using the existing Coptic version, because there is a Coptic version of the Bible, he made his own Coptic version. That is to say, on the first line, as I was saying earlier to one of our brothers, he puts the Hebrew, then he gives his own Coptic version, then he gives a Latin version of the Coptic, which he just translated, and then a French version in pidgin English, finally in standard French, and then in proper French. And so, we wonder why he doesn't use the Coptic version. Because his premise is that Moses wrote in Demotic. And because Moses wrote in Demotic, he extrapolates and says, he wrote in Demotic, therefore he wrote in Coptic. Because Coptic is indeed a very late, very, very late, transposition of Demotic. So it's a bit like saying that Caesar wrote the Gallic Wars in modern French. It's a bit like that. Because Demotic is a hieroglyphic language, and Coptic is an alphabetic language. Why? Because when the Copts wanted to translate the Bible into Egyptian, they realized that Egyptian, that is, Demotic, was a mystery language, that is, a magical language. And they didn't want to entrust the sacred mysteries to a language that was magical, and which was therefore, you see, already distorted by all those expressions, that were magical. So the Copts didn't want to do that. And they invented a language using the Greek alphabet. The Greek alphabet, by the way, is a superb alphabet. The letters are magnificent. It's absolutely beautiful. But it's an alphabetic language. So how does it translate? Well, that's a mystery. But he knows he has followers who are really into it and who form a small, very, very devoted group.
So he rediscovered, I don't know if he wanted to find it at all costs and if he did it because he wanted to, the theory of continental drift in Genesis. He found in Genesis a single continent that splits into separate continents. He found that. And then a whole bunch of engineers from Polytechnique, and then people from CentraleSupélec, flocked to his group and they study geological questions and they say very intelligent things and they have very intelligent journals because of it. So you see, it's a difficult case, the Crombette case. And if you know people who know Coptic and who could give me some guidance on the validity of his translation, I'm sure it would be helpful. But we don't have any scholars anymore. I found people in Paris who should normally have guided me, but no. And then we don't care. We have some guy who just throws out an absolutely mind-blowing translation because there are extraordinary problems. Coptic, right, like Demotic, which was a hieroglyphic language, was a language made up of nouns. There were very few verbs. So when he translates into Coptic, he finds himself with a phenomenal cascade of nouns. With the added complication that Coptic is a monosyllabic language. And so you have one concept per syllable. But Hebrew, on the other hand, isn't monosyllabic. There are at least three consonants in general in a Hebrew word. Therefore, it makes three syllables. So, with one Hebrew word, he manages to grasp three concepts in Coptic. That gives him a whole cascade of concepts. You see, I'm simplifying it here, but you get the idea. And then he has a wealth of texts, it's fantastic. He finds, you draw, I don't know, but for example, he finds in the biblical text that the one who restored demon worship after the flood was Noah's wife. I don't know if you're tracing that back to the 6th century somewhere. He finds it in the Bible. And he shows it to you in the 6th century. Oh, but there you have it, you're getting more out of it.
Topic: John (Jean) Vaquie - Counter Church conferences (Read 38 times)