(This is the conclusion of a two-part series. For the first part, click here.) To say that the Sabbatai Zevi messianic movement of the 17th century was a personality cult would be an understatement. It was surely a great deal more than that--just what, historians are still debating--but … [Read more...]
Messiah of Transgression – Thoughts on Sabbatai Zevi (Part 1)
"Tell me, dunce: are you quite certain you will have a blessed afterlife for believing, without any sign or miracle, in a man insane? Who perpetrated, moreover, one lawless act after another? In Izmir, for example, he spoke the sacred Name of God in the city streets; he taught the rabble and the … [Read more...]
An Alien Abductee in Israel – the Strange Story of Ariel Semmel (Part 2)
(For part 1 of this post, click here.) "'Aliens' is a code word for something that exists, something that's evidently wiser than we are or wise in a different way, and we don't know what it wants or is able to do. Really, what's the difference between an 'alien' and God? Different people give … [Read more...]
Desmond Leslie – Sifra di-Tzeniuta, the “Book of Dzyan,” and “Flying Saucers Have Landed”
At the beginning of this month I blogged about the terse, baffling Kabbalistic text called Sifra di-Tzeniuta, "The Book of Concealment." It's found in the second volume of the Zohar, written in Aramaic like the rest of the Zohar, yet orders of magnitude more cryptic and therefore, perhaps, more … [Read more...]
Sifra di-Tzeniuta – “The Book of Concealment”
"The Book of Concealment. The book that weighs in the balance. For until there was the balance, they did not look at one another face to face, and the Ancient Kings died and their ornaments could not be found and the earth ceased to be." That's how I understand the opening words of the short, … [Read more...]
