Qabalistic Concepts

by William G. Gray

Emphasizes how the Qabalah actively influences the Western Mystery Tradition. Gray discusses the value of "nothing," the purpose of the cross, the tree of life, and path working. His work makes Qabalah accessible to the Westerner, presenting it as a way of working with the inner principles of life to reveal one's ultimate identity and activate it in one's everyday awareness.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1578630002
• ISBN13: 9781578630004
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Weiser Books
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.04 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.4" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Excellent Introduction to the Subject

Structured something like a workbook, with questions at the end of each chapter. Mr. Gray's writing is intelligent and intelligible; he does not "dumb down" the subject matter but he does not talk "over the heads" of beginners. His tone comes across something like what I imagine as a classic English schoolmaster: knowledgeable, practical, stern but friendly, approachable, and trustworthy. I knew next to nothing about Qabala when I bought this book. Gray recommends that the student read a chapter and then let it soak in for a week or two before proceeding to the next one. I tried that initially, along with doing the exercises and answering the questions, but I got bogged down & distracted, and lost interest about 4 chapters in. Recently I picked the book up again and just read straight through it to get a "concept overview." This time I found it to be very fascinating and instructive, and I hope to return to it again later with a slightly improved understanding and do a slow pass through it according to Mr. Gray's recommendation. I was able to catch Mr. Gray out on a few factual errors concerning linguistic history and word derivations (apparently not his strong suit.) For example, in adding "th" when assigning letters of the English alphabet to paths, he mistakenly calls the rune "thorn" by the name "eth" (in Old English, eth and thorn were two different letters with different origins, both representing the "th" sound) and furthermore, he tells us that "eth" (actually "thorn") was the origin of the modern letter Y, which is not the case at all (y was already in use as a letter in Anglo-Saxon / Old English. Substitution of Y for thorn as in "Ye Olde..." occurred because Italian type foundries did not include thorn in printing typesets, thus forcing its use to wane throughout the renaissance and eventually be replaced by the modern spelling "th".) Don't trust William Gray when he tells you where a word came from, but the quality of his OTHER information seems to be good. I have other questions about the assignment of the Tarot Major Arcana cards to paths on the Tree. Gray proposes path assignments that make a lot of sense, but for some reason none of my other sources about the Tarot have adopted them; they all still use the traditional Golden Dawn "numerical order" assignments. I have to do more research in order to find out what justification there is behind the traditional system in order to decide which is better. Gray's system seems a lot more logical and is easier to remember. All in all, you can't go wrong with this book as an overview of Qabala, but don't rely on it as your sole source of information. It opens the door and invites you to further exploration.

Qabalah WMT style

This book is a really good read. It works like the way you would learn something in an occult organization and is actually part the framework for the training of the author's occult organization. Questions at the end of each chapter helps me to personally try to be very aware of all that I read. William Gray goes through meditation techniques, pathworking, linking the tarot with the Tree of Life (it would probably be of even greater benefit to get The Sangreal Tarot) and the various philosophies associated with the tree of life. Buying this book is money well spent. There are not many occult authors you can trust because they write alot of trash or mix trash in with good stuff. In this book you'll find everything worthwhile.

qabalistic concepts-living the tree

I was quite surprized by the clear and concise manner in which the author presented his material. Nothing of this nature was available when I first began my own investigations (prior to WW II.) His methods are workable and I especially blessed him for reiterating several times that you must build your own version of the tree and his recommendations to use any tarot deck that suits your fancy. What a blessing that todays seekers have a book that cuts out all the rhetoric and goes directly to the point..I threw away my old Rider deck of tarot and am now using the Arthurian deck, which makes more sense to me as a grail seeker also....this deck is quite beautiful and struck a personal note....three cheers for Mr. Gray.

For the dedicated student

those familiar with the subject of Quaballah will find the techniques used in this book very interesting. The mental techniques and symbolism are easy enough for the beginner to understand and for the some-what experienced to use as a stepping stone to look at things in a different way. Lack of familiarity with mystisism should not turn anyone away. The book is able to fill in alot of the blanks that some people may have on the subject.