The Gnosis of the Cosmic Christ
A Gnostic Christian Kabbalah



Editorial Reviews

Book Description

The noble idea of the Christian Kabbalah is not so much the worship of Jesus Christ, but rather a conscious evolution toward a divine or super-humanity. In this regard, Christian Kabbalah is quite different from its Jewish roots, and Gnostic Christianity is very different from orthodox Christianity. Both are about experiencing God and evolving toward God, rather than just studying theology.
This groundbreaking work is the first to present the Christian Gnosis of the Kabbalah in a practical and deeply esoteric way. It takes the reader from the basic ideas of the Kabbalah to in-depth explorations of the Tree of Life. Gnostic legends and myths of the Holy Mother, St. Lazarus, St. Mary Magdalene, and Jesus are woven into the study of the Holy Sefirot as well as commentaries on the Ten Commandments and The Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount.

About the Author

Malachi eben Ha-Elijah's spiritual journey began when he met the acquaintance of a Tau of the Sophian Tradition of Gnostic Christianity, Tau Elijah ben Miriam. He received the oral tradition of Sophian Gnosticism from Tau Elijah, and has been a student and practitioner of Gnostic Christianity for over thirty-five years. In 1983 he founded Sophia Fellowship as an expression of the tradition, and has been teaching and initiating others into Christian Gnosticism, Rosicrucian Philosophy and Christian Kabbalah since that time. He is an initiate of Ordo Sanctus Gnosis and serves as an Elder and Tau within the Sophian lineage. Tau Malachi is also a Chevalier (a dubbed Knight) in the International Order of Chivalric Companions, a Martinist, and is an ordained and consecrated Independent Bishop. He is co-founder of The Gnostic Apostolic Church of Sophia and is among the leading exponents of Christian Gnosticism and Kabbalah in our times. Along with his exploration of the Western Mystery Tradition, he has studied extensively in several Eastern Traditions, such as Vajrayana Buddhism and Vedanta, and he also studied within a Middle Eastern Tradition of Sufism, as well as becoming involved in Native American Shamanism. Though Gnostic Christianity has always been his heart-path...

Excerpted from Gnosis Of The Cosmic Christ: A Gnostic Christian Kabbalah by Tau Malachi.
Copyright © 2005. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Kabbalah of Gnostic Christianity

Purpose and Nature of the Kabbalah

The Kabbalah is an archaic system of Jewish Mysticism that has its roots in the assembly of prophets of ancient Israel and the Merkavah Mysticism of Palestine during the time of Jesus (Yeshua in Aramaic). Considering that Yeshua was Jewish and his disciples were Jewish, and understanding him to be a mystic and prophet of his time, it is reasonable to assume that he taught a form of the mystical tradition that has come to be known as the Kabbalah.

For this reason, many mystical and gnostic currents of Christianity have arisen that take the Kabbalah as their foundation. This is certainly true of the Sophian Tradition, which is so interwoven with the teachings of the Kabbalah that it is impossible to separate out Gnosticism and Kabbalah in the Tradition. Essentially, one might call the Sophian Tradition a Christian Kabbalah or a form of Gnostic Christianity that draws heavily upon its Judaic roots. Therefore, to explore Gnostic Christianity, as expressed in the Sophian Tradition, we must explore some of the basic ideas of the Kabbalah from which the teachings and principles of our Gnostic Christianity are derived. The principal teachings of the Kabbalah were designed to explore and find answers to some basic questions:

ÿ The nature and attributes of God and the Godhead
ÿ The development of a cosmology
ÿ The mystery of the creation of angels and humankind
ÿ The destiny of humankind and angels
ÿ The nature of the human soul and its connection to the divine
ÿ The nature of cosmic forces-angels, demons, elementals and such
ÿ The inner meaning of the revealed law and Holy Gospel
ÿ The transcendental symbolism of numbers and geometrical shapes
ÿ The mysteries contained in the Hebrew letters
ÿ The balance in the play of cosmic forces
ÿ The mystery of divine revelation and prophetic states of consciousness
ÿ The mystery of the divine incarnation and the divine plan on earth

Considering the vast height, depth, and breadth of these metaphysical questions, one can imagine the enormous amount of esoteric teachings, practices, and literature that has formed around the Kabbalah in the course of thousands of years. Although there are many modern truth-seekers who have read a book or two on the Kabbalah and mistakenly assumed they know the Kabbalah, the truth is that even a master of the Tradition, who has studied and practiced the Kabbalah all of his or her life and who actively embodies something of the enlightenment experience it represents, would not claim to know the Kabbalah. One could say that God knows the Kabbalah and that, for our part, we know what we have received of it in our own experience-which is a far cry from knowing the Kabbalah as God knows it. Essentially, the teachings of the Kabbalah represent the accumulated knowledge, understanding, and wisdom of initiates, which have been gathered from their own direct spiritual experience of the metaphysical dimensions of creatures, creation, and God. The Kabbalah itself is the knowledge, understanding, and wisdom of the true nature of creatures, creation, and God-which is known in full only to God. If the whole of the Kabbalah is in a book, then it is the heavenly Book of Life of which the Holy Scriptures speak, and not any earthly book. The teachings of the Kabbalah are founded upon the Bible, along with other books of Scripture that did not make their way into the canonized Bible. Thus, to study and understand the Kabbalah in its proper context is to study and understand the Scriptures also. Just as many mistakenly assume that they know the Kabbalah from reading a book or two, likewise many assume that they are knowledgeable in the Kabbalah without being well-studied in the Scriptures. Ultimately, however, one cannot study and understand the Kabbalah without also studying and gaining some understanding of the Holy Scriptures. To engage in the study and practice of the Kabbalah is to embark upon a mystical journey into hidden levels of the Scriptures and the secret wisdom they contain. In essence, the Scriptures and the Kabbalah are one and the same.

Three Branches of the Kabbalah

The teachings of the Kabbalah are divided into three principal forms: the theoretical or contemplative Kabbalah, the meditative Kabbalah, and the practical or magical Kabbalah. The theoretical or contemplative Kabbalah is an intellectual study and contemplation of the principles, doctrines, and correspondences of esoteric wisdom, including gematria, the associations of numbers and geometrical patterns, and so on. The meditative Kabbalah represents the teachings and practices of mystical prayer and prophetic meditation-methods through which one can enter a higher state of consciousness and experience unification with the divine. The practical or magical Kabbalah represents teachings of invocations, incantations, rituals, and such, through which one is able to shift states of consciousness at will and to consciously direct hidden spiritual forces. From this, one will understand that the Kabbalah is both a mystical and a magical Tradition. Here, we will be dealing primarily with the contemplative Kabbalah and to some extent the meditative Kabbalah. The magical Kabbalah will be referred to in passing at different points of this book; however, it is not the subject of this work.

The Ten Holy Sefirot and the Tree of Life

There are ten Sefirot (plural), which are generally referred to as Midot, meaning measurements or dimensions and, by extension, also meaning attributes or qualities. The Sefirot are emanations of the divine presence and power of God, or the infinite light of God, and they are vessels receiving God's light and transmitting it to creation. They are gradations of the involution of infinite light into finite creation, and thus are gradations of the evolution of creatures on the path of return -- like rungs on a ladder of light.

http://www.amazon.com/Gnosis-Cosmic-Christ-Christian-Kabbalah/dp/0738705918

I was reading this in a store earlier today, and it had a profound effect on me.

One medium I spoke to told me I have worked extensively with the Kabbalah in past lives.

I have only taken very superficial looks at it in the past.

This book looks really juicy; like something I could really sink my teeth into.

This carnivorous lust must find expression, I suppose, and it may as well be slaked on the flesh and blood of Christ.

Many interesting ideas taking shape now...

About emanation &/vs. creation, and whether or not The One is compromised by its own manifestation...
and how the darkness of ignorance corresponds to freedom and "free will"...
and whether or not humanity, and our capacity for self-conscious reflection,
exists merely to serve as a multifaceted mirror for an incurably vain and egocentric god.

I've been thinking about the level of the Sephiroth where angels and demons are said to exist --
in Kabbalah, if I understand correctly, these beings are on the same level;
although there are beings of positive, neutral, and negative energies,
yet, all three exist side by side on a particular level of differentiation,
as the One Light descends and is fragmented into ever smaller and more individualized forms.
So, angels, demons, and other spirits reside "above" our level of manifestation.
This is a peculiar thing to contemplate.

I've been thinking about the Holy Mother... about mercy...

And about the Holy Father... and severity...

The Kabbalah says,

"Call to the angels, and they will hearken unto you. Listen for the angels, and they will instruct you."

I want to understand what angels are.

I think the thoughts of the angels are loving, but that maybe there are corresponding thoughts for devils.

And, perhaps, beyond this angelic/demonic level, there is a higher truth in undifferentiated oneness.

But when we hearken to the angels, are we already settling for something short of God,
and does awareness of the angelic/demonic dimension(s) necessitate its own de-evolution back into manifestation?

I want to understand matter. The Earth.

The author of this book also wrote a book about Mary Magdelene and her place in the Gnostic Kabbalah.

She was called the Lady of the Wild and Mistress of the Woods, or something...

There are images of her surrounded by wild animals, who gather peacefully around her.

There is a story...

Mary, being familiar with the world of nature, and with the nature spirits, has a talent for concocting healing elixers, tinctures, poultices, and ointments. One day, while she is mixing healing potions, a handmaiden inquires of her, "Dear Mother, you have great mystical powers of healing, and could easily cure these people without resorting to such worldly means. Why then do you treat them by such coarse methods as these?" The saint sweetly explained, "Not everyone has the power to be cured by faith alone. For the sake of these dear ones, the substances of nature may be used to great effect."