The Kabbalah unveiled: Containing the following books of the Zohar: The book of concealed mystery, The greater Holy assembly and The lesser Holy assembly.

This is a translation of 3 books of the Zohar with commentary on the Book of Concealed Mystery & some notes on the Greater Holy Assembly (GHA) & Lesser Holy Assembly (LHA). Mathers did a great service in translating these into English almost a century ago, but the later Simon & Sperling version is far more complete. Mathers’s work of 300+ pp. is 15% of S&S’s 2000 pp. & <8% of the entire Zohar if completely translated. Mathers a Christian occultist/Qabalist (vs. Jewish Kabbalist), occasionally but not egregiously inserts this view. He makes useful observations e.g. GHA has 10 companions (~the sefirot) but LHA has only 7 (after 3 die), & he includes interesting cross-cultural parallels. While his comments are helpful, the books are deeply symbolic–hardly “unveiled” herein. He points out parallels with alchemy; & as Carl Jung approached alchemy, meaning begins to emerge as one reads more & more. It’s made more difficult by Mathers’: archaic language & spelling (e.g. Microprosopus vs. lesser countenance), words with excess letters (e.g. Schimeon for Simeon/Shimon, Tzion for Zion), incorrectly using I vs. Y = yod, using “Tetragrammaton” for the unpronounceable Name, & retaining Latin in sensitive areas. The work is largely based on Knorr von Rosenrath’s somewhat suspect, `Kabbala Denudata’ (with some explicit departures), Chaldean (Aramaic?), & Hebrew versions. There are some errors (e.g. plate 1, p. 3) & omissions (obvious Gematria i.e. 18 = Hebrew “life” & 248 = certain laws

S.L.MacGregor – The Kabbalah Unveiled, The Kabbalah Unveiled, S.L.MacGregor.

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