Greer's Cabala

“The Path of Wisdom” is John Michael Greer's guide to the Christian Hermetic Cabala in the version developed by the Golden Dawn, an esoteric order that flourished in Britain over a century ago.

The bulk of the book is a mini-encyclopaedia of the various “spheres” and “paths” on the Tree of Life (the main Cabalistic symbol of the cosmos and its structure). I admit that this was way over my head, so I haven't read it (yet). However, “Paths of Wisdom” also contain chapters of a more introductory character.

Some deal with the basic metaphysical presuppositions of the Cabala: The Veils of the Unmanifest, the Tree of Life, the relation between symbol and reality, the polarities of being, and the Cabbalistic view of creation and redemption. Other chapters deal with practice, which in this tradition means ritual magic, meditation, prayer and “pathworking” (which at least to some extent sounds like astral travel).

To Greer, magic is a method for personal, spiritual transformation, so don't expect any love-spells or hexes! However, he does mention other peculiar phenomena in conjunction with Cabbalistic practice, such as encounters with “magical beings” during “pathworking”. (Sounds Egyptian!)

Although I'm not ready to join W. B. Yeats on a climb towards Kether just yet, I must nevertheless say that I liked this book, so I give it four stars. Incidentally, Greer himself left the “path to wisdom” after having published this book, and took up Revival Druidism instead! But that, as they say, is another story entirely.