Short answer
The Hermetic Kabbalah (usually spelled Hermetic Qabalah by its practitioners) is the version of Kabbalah used in Western occultism. It takes the Jewish mystical diagram of the Tree of Life and combines it with Hermetic ideas, astrology, alchemy, tarot and ritual magic. It was developed mainly in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and is not the same as traditional Jewish Kabbalah.
Where it came from
The Hermetic version has three main stages:
- Christian Kabbalah. In the Renaissance, scholars such as Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (who wrote on the subject in the 1480s) and later Johannes Reuchlin studied Jewish Kabbalistic texts and tried to fit them into Christian theology. The Hermetic and Christian use of Kabbalah began here.
- Occult revival. In the nineteenth century, Éliphas Lévi connected the Hebrew alphabet to the tarot and presented Kabbalah as part of a unified “magic.” Later occultists adopted this framework.
- The Golden Dawn. Founded in 1888, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn made the Tree of Life the center of its teaching and ritual system. S. L. MacGregor Mathers, one of its founders, published The Kabbalah Unveiled (1887), an English version of parts of a Latin translation of the Zohar. Aleister Crowley’s 777 and Dion Fortune’s The Mystical Qabalah (1935) are among the later influential books.
The Tree of Life in the Hermetic system
The central image is the Tree of Life: ten spheres, called sephiroth, joined by 22 paths. In Jewish Kabbalah the sephiroth are aspects through which the divine is understood to act. The Hermetic system keeps the diagram but treats it as a map of the cosmos and of the mind, which the student explores in stages, often in step with the order’s grades.
Correspondences: tarot, planets, elements
What makes the Hermetic version distinct is its table of correspondences. The 22 paths are assigned to the 22 Hebrew letters, which in turn are linked to the 22 major arcana of the tarot, as well as to planets, zodiac signs and elements. Sephiroth are linked to planets and colors. This cross-referencing is a very Hermetic idea, rooted in the notion that all things in the cosmos are linked; see Hermeticism. The exact assignments have varied between authors, so there is no single fixed table.
Hermetic versus Jewish versus Christian Kabbalah
- Jewish Kabbalah is part of a religious tradition and is bound up with Torah study and observance. Its core text, the Zohar, appeared in medieval Spain in the thirteenth century. Many Jewish teachers treat it as inseparable from Jewish practice.
- Christian Kabbalah adapted the material to support Christian doctrine.
- Hermetic Kabbalah is non-denominational in outlook and mixes in non-Jewish material. Members need not hold any particular religion.
Scholars and many Jewish writers note that the Hermetic system is a distinct creation, not an unbroken continuation of the Jewish tradition. Practitioners usually acknowledge this by using a different spelling.
Why the spelling “Qabalah”
The spelling Qabalah became a convention among Hermetic and occult writers to separate their system from Jewish Kabbalah and the Christian Cabala. The spellings are not a perfect rule, but you can often tell the tradition by the spelling: Kabbalah for Jewish, Cabala for Christian, Qabalah for Hermetic.
Where to start reading
The books named above are a common starting point, though they differ in quality and reliability. For the historical background, look for work by academic historians of esotericism, and for the Jewish tradition, read Jewish scholars directly. For the wider picture, see Western esotericism. If you are wondering whether Kabbalah resembles other mystical systems, Gnosticism is the most common comparison.