Can't grasp Qabalah, help?
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For a basic entrypoint, I'd recommend The Chicken Qabalah by Lon Milo DuQuette. It covers all the necessary info in an easy to digest framework with a solid dose of humor. I'm not really sure any qabalah from a Thelemic perspective would be beginner-level (gotta learn the tradition before you can adapt it to a new paradigm) but Lon is a life-long Thelemite so you can at least rest assured that he won't be steering you away from the path that you eventually want to travel.
www.goodreads.com/book/show/420549.The_Chicken_Qabalah_of_Rabbi_Lamed_Ben_Clifford
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For what it's worth I wholeheartedly second the recommendation above. Mr. DuQuette's "Chicken Qabalah" is a wonderful primer/mid-level work on the topic. His commentary work on the Book of Thoth is good too.
"All discussions upon philosophy are necessarily sterile, since truth is beyond language. They are, however, useful if carried far enough--if carried to the point when it becomes apparent that all arguments are arguments in a circle. But discussions of the details of the purely imaginary qualities are frivolous and may be deadly. For the great danger of this magical theory is that the student may mistake the alphabet for the things which the words represent."
- A.C., "MiTP, chapter 0"
"The first task of the Magician in every ceremony is therefore to render his Circle absolutely impregnable."
- ibid., chapter 13
"The mind is the great enemy; so, by invoking enthusiastically a person whom we know not to exist, we are rebuking that mind."
- ibid., chapter 2
"The others, proud in their purple, refuse. They make themselves a false crown of the Horrors of the Abyss; they set the Dispersion of Choronzon upon their brows; they clothe themselves in the poisoned robes of Form; they shut themselves up; and when the force that made them what they are is exhausted, their strong towers fall, they become the Eaters of Dung in the Day of Be-with-us, and their shreds, strewn in the Abyss, are lost."
- ibid., chapter 21
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Was just reading from Frater Achad 's book
Q.B.L chapters 9 & 10. Such beautiful words and so
Powerful. I hope I'll be able to break through with
my mental block, so one day I'll be able to revisit
his work with a better understanding.
(CH. 9 & 10 did move me even with the mental
block
)
Thanks again guys. -
A good place to start, so far as memorizing the raw data is concerned, would be to learn columns I, III, VII, and XIV from Liber 777. Also you want to know the number values of the Hebrew letters and the ability to sight-read those letters. The numbering of the trump cards of the tarot is important. Become intimately familiar with all of these and you will have a very solid foundation to start adding to. Gods, colors, jewels, etc. will start to snap into place then through your reading of the Holy Books and other writings.