The Mystical Qabalah Paperback – July 31, 2023

I can totally understand why Israel Regardie gave this book such high acclaim!I was actually going to deduct at least one star for the huge number of errors made. It's as if a manuscript was taken, placed into a machine to format it into a publishable version, but in the process some words got changed, periods were deleted, some paragraphs were not indented, the number 5 got inserted where an S should have been, etc. Normally, this would have really bothered me and taken away from the reading experience. Yet, for some reason, in this book, I found myself enjoying these errors! Its as if they activated my subconscious, pulled me in more potently to fill in the right words!In the last couple of months, I've found myself fascinated by how the tree of life maps out the psychological forces within us. As I read, I often thought about Ken Wilber's developmental models and what Freud and Carl Jung had to contribute.This book, more than any other that I have read, beautifully and clearly depicted what each sephiroth upon the tree represents. I appreciate the fact that Dion Fortune had a deep background in human psychology and was familiar with the driving force of eastern thought.I've spend years studying eastern ideology, Zen Buddhism, Vedanta, Hinduism. I've read several versions of the Bhagavad Gita, The Ashtavakra Gita, The Wisdom of the Vedas, The Upanishads, --which all point to the Absolute Reality. Our Ultimate Identity. Yet something always seemed to be missing, something always felt left out. I always got the sense that such works were telling me to shed the self and its movements in duality, because ultimately it is just an illusion.Dion, in contrast, acknowledges the truth of our Ultimate Identity but expresses how important it is to dive fully into the manifest realm. In eastern thought there is a saying that "emptiness is form and form is emptiness," yet they seem to undervalue the form aspect. Dion tells us that form manifests for an important reason. It isn't meant to be shunned or discarded. That the path to form leads us to the same Ultimate Destination--the realization of our Ultimate Identity as Kether.Anyway, I really loved Dion Fortune's writing style. She had a gift for explaining complex patterns of movement, in a simple and clear manner. I will even say that her writing was somewhat poetic. Most powerfully, I could tell that she was writing from a place of "direct" experience. That in her meditations she had not just seen these forces in motion, but had become them. She did a HUGE service to humanity in writing this book. It moved me so much that I purchased more of her books and intend to eventually own and digest everything she wrote.Therefore I just couldn't deduct a single star, even with the wealth of mistakes throughout the book. I even bought both versions, the Kindle version and the paperback. Both versions contain misspelling and punctuation errors.

This was my first serious attempt to understand Qabbalah. This book opened my eyes to the gods of Western society, which, being raised christian, I never even considered. It also returned me to my Christian roots as I now have what was missing from my Christian education, a source of knowledge instead of faith.

It's a quick read and a small book. But it steps outside traditional qabbala books. I actually learned a lot. I been reading Occult literature for about 45 years and I got something out of it. It's a fun read and the author writes in an entertaining fashion. I liked it.

I won't get into the debates between Kabbalah, Cabalah, and Qabalah, it gets messy and it's safe to say that everyone has their own reasons for arguing that theirs is the best.What I love about this book is it actually has an in-depth description of the sephira and their meanings. For a while I was finding a wealth of knowledge about their names, the histories of different strains and schools, the letters for the paths, but never really found anything that was closer to an operating manual for the concepts than this. That said I understand that Gareth Knight's 'A Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism' is similar to this but expanded and with detail on the twenty-two paths (something that DF wasn't allowed to publish in her lifetime) and from the appendix that he added in this book I'm very interested in gettting a copy of that as well. I also downloaded the Kindle version of DF's Cosmic Doctrine which I've heard to be incredibly intense - should be an adventure!On a side note I have read around and heard there are some blinds in here - perhaps, but at the same time I was more worried about the larger concepts and what exactly Kether, Chokmah, Binah, Chesed, Geburah, Tiphareth, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malkuth really mean or what their functions are in relationship to their neighboring sephira. If you're looking for that kind of information I'd have to argue in favor of this book being as good a starting point as many people claim.

Very comprehensive and informative, great reference book

This unique book, written by a serious student of an established school of the Western traditions dispenses with the absurdities of unnecessary concealment, and lays out for the reader a practical guide to the Kabbalah and its associations. This book successfully "translates" esoteric teachings into the language of the psychologist. This permits the modern student of either psychology or occult science to better understand the approach taken by the other to the process of human becoming.Of further tremendous value, and a pleasant and unexpected bonus, was the afterword by modern adepts of the authors school. Here they lay out more modern findings, couching the authors work in some practical guidance on moving from sphere to sphere , or, from one state of perception to another more integrative one.

This book was reffered to me by many sources and after reading it i feel more confident in the basics. But the kindle version has too many typos so many to the point of being almost unreadable. I hope the publishers are reading the comments and correct the errors.

It started pretty good and interesting, but turned out dry. Not my favorite book on the subject, but I'm sure many people would find it very informative.