Source books
Books
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29 books of 336 · oldest first
Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah 29
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Late antiquity; the tradition is attested by the 2nd century, the surviving texts are later (contested)
Shi'ur Qomah
An enumeration of the measurements of the divine body, given in figures so vast they defeat comprehension, which is generally taken to be the point of them.
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Possibly the earliest Merkavah text; date contested
Re'uyot Yehezkel
A mystical midrash on the single verse Ezekiel 1:1 that enumerates what Ezekiel saw, and gives an unusually detailed account of seven heavens with their names, dimensions and...
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Final redaction 5th–6th century CE; Byzantine or Babylonian provenance contested
3 Enoch
Third Enoch is a central source for the tradition in which Enoch is elevated and transformed into Metatron. It develops Metatron's heavenly offices and titles, including Prince...
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5th–9th century CE (redaction; contested)
Hekhalot Rabbati
The longest and best known Hekhalot text follows R. Ishmael and R. Akiva through seven guarded palaces, where seals and divine names open the way. The journey is called a...
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5th–9th century CE (contested); some material argued to be older
Hekhalot Zutarti
Shorter, denser and more magical than the Greater Palaces, turning on the disclosure of divine names. It carries the water vision: the warning that when the one who descends...
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Late antiquity, 5th–9th century CE (contested)
Ma'aseh Merkavah
The most liturgical of the Hekhalot texts: a collection of prayers and hymns inside a dialogue between R. Ishmael and R. Akiva, which embeds the ascent instructions in recited...
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probably 3rd–6th centuries CE
Sefer Yetzirah
Ten sefirot, twenty-two letters, thirty-two paths. Its division of the letters into three Mothers, seven Doubles and twelve Simples is the structural rule every later tree is...
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appears c. 1176; incorporates older material
Sefer ha-Bahir
Fragmentary, deliberately obscure, and the earliest place the ten sefirot appear as divine potencies.
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1273
Book of Redemption
An early prophetic work articulating his understanding of revelation.
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1280
Life of the World to Come
One of his clearest manuals of ecstatic technique involving letters and divine names.
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1280
Secrets of the Torah
A commentary on Maimonidean philosophy interpreted through mystical methods.
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c. 1290
Sha'arei Orah
The most systematic medieval account of the divine names and their sefiroth. Its ten gates climb from Adonai in Malchut to Ehyeh in Keter, and each opens with a verse containing...
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Late 13th–early 14th century
Tikkunei Zohar
Seventy interpretations of the first word of Genesis, and the home of the Patach Eliyahu — the passage beginning 'Elijah opened' that maps the sefirot onto the parts of a body,...
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principally late thirteenth century; circulated from the 1280s
Zohar
A vast mystical commentary on the Torah concerned with the sefirot, divine masculine and feminine dimensions, cosmic symbolism, evil, souls and mystical interpretation.
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1285–86
Treasury of the Hidden Eden
An extensive synthesis of his prophetic Kabbalah.
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c. 1285–88
Book of the Sign
A highly visionary prophetic work.
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1291
Words of Beauty
Among the latest datable products of his career.
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1548, first printed 1592
Pardes Rimonim
Cordovero's systematisation of Zoharic Kabbalah into thirty-two gates, written before Luria's teaching reorganised the field. It is the most orderly pre-Lurianic presentation of...
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Late 16th century; the Arizal's teaching as recorded by Vital
Pri Etz Chaim
The Lurianic manual of practice — the intentions to be held during prayer and the festivals, arranged as gates. Gate 22, the Gate of the Omer Count, is the source of the scheme...
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Early 17th century; printed Peremyshl 1896–1898
Ohr HaChammah
A commentary on the Zohar assembling the readings of the Safed kabbalists. It is cited here for one thing it does that its sources do not: it states the mapping of the seven...
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1887
The Kabbalah Unveiled
Translation of portions of Knorr von Rosenroth's Latin Kabbala Denudata, making Zoharic material accessible in English.
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English translation, 1887
Sepher Yetzirah
Helped make a foundational Kabbalistic text available to English-speaking occultists.
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1913
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1913
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1926
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1929
The Holy Kabbalah
A massive if idiosyncratic history and interpretation of Kabbalah from a mystical-Christian perspective.
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1974
Kabbalah
Scholem's one-volume survey of Kabbalah: a historical essay on the basic ideas followed by encyclopaedia entries on texts, figures and terms.
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undated
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undated
The Sword of Moses
apocryphal book of ancient Hebrew magic