Flying Camels
-
93
Now we find in the Zohar a very strange assertion[...]that the serpent, which was used by Shamael (the supposed Satan), to seduce Eve, was a kind of flying camel[...]in the Avesta* is represented as having lost after the Fall "its nature and its name," and is described as a huge serpent with a camel's neck. - H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine
I read this statement today & was struck with the realization that a cross of a serpent & a camel appears on the Tree of Life at the intersection of the Paths Teth & Gimel...in Genesis the serpent was charged with enticing man to partake of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, which is often likened to the Sephirah Da'ath - & Da'ath resides just above the aforementioned intersection. I am curious to know if the author of the Zohar would have would have used a Tree with Path attributions resembling that of the Golden Dawn or might this be the result of Wescott constructing Tree with the Zohar in mind.
616
93 93/93
-
@KRVB MMShCh said
"I am curious to know if the author of the Zohar would have would have used a Tree with Path attributions resembling that of the Golden Dawn or might this be the result of Wescott constructing Tree with the Zohar in mind."
Wesctott didn't invent the G.D. Tree design. It is many centuries old, and, while it is harder to be definitive about Sephirothic deployment, the Path attributions of the oldest editions of Sepher Yetzirah (early to mid 1st Century) essentially match the G.D. system and tend to disagree with the Rabbinical system that was a later retrofit to the Zohar.
-
Then it is quite possible for the Zohar to have been referencing the aforementioned Paths. Have you seen any thing written on the connections between the cross-road of Teth & Gimel & the camel/serpent of Genesis?
616
-
@KRVB MMShCh said
"Then it is quite possible for the Zohar to have been referencing the aforementioned Paths. Have you seen any thing written on the connections between the cross-road of Teth & Gimel & the camel/serpent of Genesis?"
No. And I'm not at all sure it was intended, though I did think it was an interesting "catch" and worth thinking about.
The more cumbersome issue is that Da'ath was a much later development, and its relationship is much more linked to the intersection of Gimel and Daleth than to Gimel and Teth.
Still, it's a good piece of symbolism and, as I said, a good "catch."
I wish I could see the original Hebrew being referenced. I suspect a possible mistranslation (which might still be Qabalistically significant because it might be a different word with the same spelling - It is quite humorous, and possibly quite accurate, to translate the same phrase as "flying ripe fruit"!)