~~ Suggested Reading ~~

Back to Index

Page 2

Go to Page 1

REFERENCES TO CHECK OUT OR COPY AT LIBRARY (including Kabbala)

SOURCE: Sheila A. Spector, Jewish Mysticism: An Annotated Bibliography on the Kabbalah in English (1984).

B19 Hook, Walter Farquar. A Church Dictionary. Rev. 4th Ed. London: J.G.F. & J. Rivington, 1844; 14th ed. London, 1887.

Discussions of Caballa and Cabbalistics, devoted to Oral Law, and Artificial Cabbala -- Gernatria, Notaricon and Temurah: "Most of the heretics in the primitive Christian Church, fell into the vain conceits of the Cabbala, particularly the Gnostics, Valentinians, and Basilidians." In paragraph on "Cabbalists," Hooks discusses "Simon, the son of Joachal,... The first Cabbalistical author that we know of."

B40 Encyclopaedia Judica. 16 vols. Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1971.

Contains entries on most concepts and figures associated with Jewish mysticism, including extensive articles on Kabbalism and the Zohar by Scholem, and discussions of Hasidism by Avraham Rubenstein, Louis Jacobs and Rifkah Schatz-Uffenheimer.

B51 Milman, Henry Hart. The History of the Jews, from the Earliest Period down to Modern Time. Murray's Family Library. London, 1829-30; New York, 1841. 8 Rev. ed. London, 1863; New York, 1864.

A relatively comprehensive history of the Jews; devoted part of Chapter 27 to false messaiahs--Sabbatai Zevi and Jacob Frank.

30, Survey of Inf1uence of the Jews on Philosophy, poetry, History, etc. containing discussions of Kabbalah based on A. Franck a comparison of Kabbalah and Zendavesta, an analysis of Kabbalah's attitude towards marriage, and an introduction to the adepts of Kabbalah.

B55 Steinschneider, Moritz. Jewish Literature from the Eighth to the Eighteenth Century, with on Introduction on Talmud and Midrash: A Historical Essay. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longman, & Roberts, 1857. Rpt. New York: Hermon Press, 1965, 1970; Hildesheim: Gg. Olme, 1967.

An expansion and English translation of an article written for Ersob and Gruber's Encyclopaedia, contains a survey of Jewish writings as literature. The thirteenth section of Period II, Mysteries and Kabbala (pp. 104-15), is an attempt to trace the historical development of the transformation of the older mysteries (Period I, section 5: Haggada) "into Kabbala first in Europe, and subsequently in the East," beginning with Isaac the Blind, "Father of the Kabbala," twelfth century through the fifteenth.

B59 Baskerville, Beatrice C. The Polish Jew: His Social and Economic Value. New York: Macmillan Company, 1906.

The "result of eight years' residence in the country"; written "both for the sake of the pauper aliens themselves and for that of the peoples among whom they eventually settled." Part II, chapter 3, Frank and his Followers (pp. 261- 81), focuses on the effects of Jacob Frank on the Polish Jewish community.

B63 Webster, Nesta Secret Societies and Subversive Movements. London: Boewell Printing & Publishing Co. Ltd., 1924. Ppt. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1955.

"The object of the present book is [to trace] the course of revolutionary ideas through secret societies from the earliest times, indicating the role of the Jews only where it is to be clearly detected, but not seeking to implicate them where good evidence is not forthcoming." Chapter 8, The Jewish Cabalists (pp. 177-950, explains that "throughout the Middle Ages it is as sorcerers and usurers that [Jews] incur the reproaches of the Christian world, and it is still in the same role, under the more modern terms of magicians and loan-mongers, that we detect their presence behind the scenes of revolution from the seventeenth century onward." Webster discusses Manasseh ben Israel, Sabbatai Zevi, the Ba'al Shem Tov, Joel ben Uri Heilprin, Jacob Frank, Martines Pasqually and Hayyim Samuel Jacob Falk.

178 Blau, Joseph L. The Story of Jewish Philosophy. New York: random House, 1962. Rpt. New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1971.

'This book is not written for philosophers or for scholars in the Jewish field, though I hope that even these may find in it something to arouse or to hold their interest. It is written as part of a larger program, ... to make the age-old tradition of the Jewish people available to modern men and women in a language that they can understand and an idiom that is not strange or obscure.' Chapter 4, From Gnosticism to Kabbala (pp. 89-121) , covers: Jewish Gnostics; Mysticism of the Throne; The Mystery of Creation; Beginnings of the Kabbala; The Pious of Germany; Mystical Speculation in Provence and Spain; Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia; Joseph ben

Abraham Gikatilia; The Book of Splendor; The Ideas of the Book of Splendor; and Moses Cardovero, Systematizer.

B85 Duhnow, Semon N. History of the Jews. Trans. Moshe Spiegl. 5 vols. South Brunswick, New Jersey, New York and London: Thomas Yoseloff, 1967.

'This is a universal history of the Jewish people in that it fully corresponds to the contents and the scope of this extraordinary pert of the history of mankind." See: Vol. II, ch. 61, Apocrypha and Apocalypse (1.692-701); Vol. II, ch. 97, Philo of Alexandria, (1.828-37); Vol. III, ch. 71, The Religious Philosophy of Saodyah Gaon, the Rationalists and the Mystics (11.412-20); Vol. IV, ch. 40, Moralists and Mystics (11.715-20); Vol. V, ch. 18, Mystical Theosophy, Kabbalists and Messiah-Seekers (111.123-28); Vol. V, ch. 19, The Zohar (111.129-33); Vol. V, ch. 26, Anti-Rationalism, Mysticism, and Martyrology (111.167-71); Vol. VI, ch. 7, The Mystic [sic] of Safed: Cordovero and Arl (111.503-9); Vol. VI, ch. 8, practical Kabbala, Its Influence in Life and Literature (111.509-16); Vol. VI, ch. 18, Rabbinism and Mysticism (111.581-86); Vol. VI, ch. 49, Theology, Kabbala, Apologia, Popular Literature (111.810-21); Vol. VII, chs. 4-8, on Sahhstai Zevi (IV.45-81(; Vol. VII, ch. 22, Kabbalists and Sectarians; The Secret Shabhetaians (IV.167-71(; Vol. VII, ch. 52, Spiritual Split, The Apostate Frankists (IV.378-94); Vol. VII, chs. 53-54, on Hasidism (IV.394-409(; Vol. VIII, ch. 51, The Hassidic-Mithnagged Schism and the Intervention of the Government (IV.742-47); Vol. VIII, ch. 52, The Rabbinate and the Triumphant Hasidism (IV.747-53

D131 Scholem, C. "'The Curious History of the Six-pointed Star: How the 'Maqen David' Became the Jewish Symbol." Commentary 8(1949), 243-51.

..... traces the obsoure story of the Magen David through its long and curious career, and reveals that the true story of the symbol is quite different from that asserted by most accepted 'authorities.'" (Editor's note)

D132 Buber, Martin. "Myth in Judaism." Trans. Ralph Manheim. Commentary, 9(1950), 562-66.

"When the editor of Commentary suggested that a translation of this essay be published, I re-read it for the first time in many years. (It was the fourth of my seven Speeches' on Judaism and dates from 1913; my last reading of it was in preparation for the issuing of a collected edition of the Speeches; in 1923). Upon re-reading, I have the impression that it may be of some importance even today for those wanting to know about the spiritual history of Israel, and so I willingly agreed. But I should like to inform the reader that had I written the essay some years later, I would have made it clearer that real myth is the expression, not of an imaginative state of mind or of mere feeling, but of a real meeting of two Realities."

D133 Bamberger, Bernard Jacob. Fallen Angels. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1952.

Traces the myth of the rebel angels "within the Jewish religion and in the religions that sprang from Judaism." Part VII, "Jewish Mysticism" (pp. 163-99), traces the theme through German and Spanish Kabbalah, the Zohar, the later mystics and the Hasidic movement.

D139 Scholem, Gershorn G. "The Star of David: History of a Symbol." Trans. Michael A. Meyer. In his A8l. Pp. 257-81.

"What, then, is the true history of the Star of David in Jewish tradition? Is it rooted in that tradition? Did it for larger or smaller circles possess dignity as the symbol of Judaism, or at least as a Jewish symbol? And if not--when did it receive this function and status, and as a result of what circumstances? If we seek to clarify these questions, we must distinguish between the appearance of the sign itself, i.e., the figure of the two interlocked equilateral triangles, and the history of the designation which it bears today as the Shield of David. The symbol and its designation were not always connected. The history of the symbol, its career and its reception by Judaism, are however of great interest, especially if we remove the inventions and fantasies which certain recent Jewish scholars have woven around it."

D159 Couzin, Robert. 'Leibnitz, Freud and Kabbalah." Journal of the History of Behavioral Sciences 6(1970), 335-48.

Psychologist Cordon Allport identifies two poles of psychology, the Lockean and the Leihitrian, and David Bakan's demonstration of Freud's place within another tradition, Jewish mysticism or Kabbala [D154], could serve to further this identification if any evidence could be found that associated Leibnitz with this latter movement. The presentation of such evidence is the first purpose of this paper. This link being established, we will be in a position to suggest a characterization of the Leibnizain tradition itself of which Leibnitz, Freud and the Kabbalists are all expressions.

H19 Netanyahu, B. Don Isaac Abravanel: Statesman and Philosopher. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1953.

Study of Don Isaac Abravanel, "Statesman, diplomat, courtier and financier of international reknown,... an encyclopedic scholar, a philosopher thinker, a noted exegete and a brilliant writer.... also a mystic and apocalyptist of the highest stature and influence." part II chapter 4, Messianism (pp 195-257), asserts that "the messianic concept of Abravanel comprises all the aspects of his world outlook in its fullest and broadest sense. Consequently, it embodies drastic changes not only in the history of the Jewish people, but also in that of mankind as a whole, and it entails, in addition, cataclysmic changes in nature, especially manifested by the miracle of resurrection and by the absolute domination of the spirit over the flesh. In brief, this is the Messianism of the Jewish mystics and apocalyptists, and not of the realists and the rationalists.... This is not a worldly Messianism, although it is not otherly-worldly; it is not a heavenly paradise, although it is not an earthly one either. It is the dream of man in wonderland. It is something humanity has never experienced and never will, in the ordinary course of events. Hence it is not historical but post-historical. It belongs to the End of Days."

K33 Poker, Abraham G. "Polish Frankism's Duration: Polish Cabbalistic Judaism to Roman Catholicism and from Jewishness to Polishness -- A Preliminary Investigation." Jewish Social Studies, 25(1963), 287-333.

"This is an attempt to reconstruct in part the journey of the Polish followers of the false messiah Jacob Frank (d. 1791) away from the extremist Cabbalistic Judaism of the 'Higher Torah' into the Roman Catholic Church and polish belongingness, some generations after their insincere baptism at the end of the 1750's. Particular attention will be given to a famous branch of the Frankist large Wolowski clan, namely, the family of Maria Wolowski Szymanowska, the first Frankist musical artiste of note whose daughter, Celina, was married to Poland's outstanding poet, Adam Mickiewicz.

K42 Duker, Abraham G. Frankism as a Movement of Polish-Jewish Synthesis. Pp 133-164.

"A new factor entered in the middle of the nineteenth century, namely, the transformation of antisemitism in Poland from mainly religiously motivated views into racial, racial-religious, and finally, racial-religious-folkish ideological solutions of the Jewish problem. These changes brought theoretical and speculative antisemitic interpretations of Frankism, possibly more far-reaching than that of the Nazis, as will be mentioned later. It is my intention to bring out, within the limited space allotted, the main lines as well as examples of the developments." Sections: The Founder and His Sect; Ambivalent Acceptance; World Rule; Continued Separatism, Complications in Accepting Christian Beliefs; The Frankists as a Social Group; Expansion of Class of Wealthy Jews; The Jewish War of 1859; Defense Tactics; Racism and Anti-Frankist Fears; Rejection of Other Converts' Intermarriage; and "Intellectuals" Go Racist.

K50 Wacholder, Ben Zion. "Jacob Frank and the Frankists Hebrew Zoharic Letters." Hebrew Union College Annual, 53(1982) 265-93.

"This publication reproduces and interprets the Hebrew Zoharic letter written by three disciples of Jacob Frank in 1800 and addressed to the Jews of Hungary.

L79 Maimon, Solomon. Autobiography. Trans., with an essay on Maimon's philosophy, J. Clark Murray. Paisley: A. Gardner, and Boston: Cupples and Hurd, 1888. Rpt. New York: Schocken Books, 1947, 1967, London: East and West Library, 1954.

The autobiography of Solomon Maimon (1754-1800) reflects not only the philosophical, intellectual, historical and scientific background of an original thinker who rebelled against the Structures of the Jewish community, but also, the state of the contemporary Jewish community outside Germany. In Chapter12, I Study the Kabbalah, and Even Become a Physician (pp. 38-43), Maimon describes his introduction to kabbalistic studies; and Chapter 16, A Secret Society: the Hasidic Sect (pp. 49-55), is a critique of Hasidism.

080 Nicolson, Marjorie Hope. Conway Letters: The Correspondence of Anne, Viscountess Conway, Henry More, and Their Friends, 1642-1644. Collected from Manuscript Sources & Edited with a Biographical Account. New Haven: Yale University Press. London: Oxford University Press, 1930.

A major intellect of seventeenth-century England, outstanding among men as well as women, Anne Conway was at the center of a group including William Harvey, Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton, Rene Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, Johann Gottfried van Leibnitz, Ralph Cudworth, Henry More, William Penn, George Fox, George Keith, and Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont. In the Conway Letters, Nicolson provides an edition of the correspondence of this unusual woman, devoting Chapter VI to van Helmont (pp. 309-77), who through Conway disseminated kabbalism throughout the Western European intellectual community.

093 Hambloch, Ernest. "The power behind European Freemasonry." 63 English Review 568-579 (1936).

095 Weston, Warren. "Father of Lies'." London: M.C.P. Publications, 1938.

Attempt "to discover the principles of world theocracy for which powerful occult groups are labouring," by first examining "the general character of magic and magical symbolism. If these are found in the pagan religions which will be considered next, the Same method will be followed in dealing with various esoteric sects and secret societies."Chapter 4, The Kabbalah, Key to Judaism (p. 49-72), explores the esoteric doctrine of this "pagan" faith from the perspective of the occult, in order to explain "some of the magical practices recorded in ancient Jewish history."

097 Blau, Joseph L. "The Diffusion of the Christian Interpretation of the Cabala in English Literature." Review of Religion, 6(1941-42), 146-68.

Blau traces the appearance of Kabbalism throughout the history of English literature, from Dean Colet and John Fisher, through Everard Digby, Henry Howard, Early of Northampton, Henry Smith, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, Arthur Golding, the Cambridge platonists, Francis Bacon, Robert Burton, John Owen, John Brinsley, Archbishop John Tillotson, Thomas Godwyn, John Hilton, William Blake, Philip Bailey, the Reverend Richard Harris Barham (pen-name Thomas Ingoldaby, Esq.), George Eliot, W.B. Yeats, Madame Blavatsky, Anna Kingsford, Edward Maitland, Wynn Westcott, and others, to conclude that "Fludd, Thomas Vaughan, and Henry More were the only Christian Cabalists who wrote in English," though because "Christian Cabalism pervaded the atmosphere of Europe, many English writers were touched by its ideas....Cabalism was an intellectual fad, a day's fashion."

0110 Fletcher, Harris Francis. The Intellectual Development of John Milton. 2 vols. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1956.

In the section, Milton's Beginnings and Early Training in Semitics (1.276-83), Fletcher confronts the question of Milton's knowledge of Kabbalah. After discounting the argument of Saurat (072) on the basis that it lacks any scholarly foundation, Fletcher himself lays the groundwork for a study of kabbalistic influences on Milton, asserting that Alexander Gill, the Elder, Milton's teacher, knew Latin translations of kabbalistic texts, and that much of this Latinized and Christianized Kabbalah was readily available to seventeenth-century Englishmen.

0111 James, Laura De Mitt. William Blake: The Finger on the Furnace.New York: Vantage Press, 1956.

"My main thesis in this study is an interpretation of one of Blake's most deftly hidden doctrines: the doctrine of the False Tongue beneath Beulah." In order to prepare the reader for her exposition on the False Tongue, James offers several preliminary essays dealing with Blake and Kabbalah, including: The Tree of Life, Hierarchy, The Dead in Ulro, and Chaos.

0160 Coudert, Allison. " Cambridge platonist's Kabbalist Nightmare." Journal of the History of Ideas, 36(1975), 633-52.

While early in his philosophic career, Henry Hare was drawn to Kabbalah and to the two leading contemporary exponents of Jewish mysticisrn, Lady Anne Conway and Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont, ultimately, More rejected Kabbalah because "the Kabbalists were neither modest nor charitable in their writings. They asserted the most monstrously complex theories and spoke about them as if they were fundamental truths.... In the end, More could not accept the Kabbalah, nor could he convince Helmont and Lady Conway that his objections were valid.'.

0182 Banes, Daniel. Shakespeare, Shylock and Raballa. Silver Spring, Md.: Malcolm House, 1978.

"The purpose of this book is to identify some of the kabblistic themes in The Merchant of Venice, and to relate them to antecedents in the literature of the Kabbalah. The evidence that I have accumulated seems overwhelmingly abundant.....The thesis of the book is that the Playwright, inspired by the romantic symbolism and the exalted ideals of Jewish Kabbalah, artistically wove subtle kabbalistic embellishments into the multistranded tapestry of his complex drama." Part I: The Kabbalistic Tradition of Merrie England; Part II. Kabbalistic Theme in The Merchant of Venice; Part III: Shakespeare's Kabbalistic Sourcebooks.

Other Books:

Unknown Author, Irish and English Freemasons and their Foreign Brothers (1878). weekrd1.htm

Back to Index

Page 2

Go to Page 1