Over the years my personal spiritual journey has led me to become more and more appreciative of the teachings of Gnosticism. While I had originally believed Gnosticism to be a radical form of Christianity that developed during the early formation of the church, I later was surprised to see just how widely accepted the teachings were and how some of the same Gnostic themes were popping up in other religions such as the so-called “Jewish” Kabbalah as well as other eastern religious traditions such as Buddhism or Hinduism. For me personally then, I was pleasantly surprised to find in the preface of the Zohar more hints that Kabbalah is indeed what some refer to as “Jewish Gnosticism.”
As an example, in the preface of the Zohar a simple sentence caught my eye when it describes earth as a “prison” that is a barrier to spiritual understanding. This is a very Gnostic understanding and one that flies in the face of both traditional Christianity (and by extension Judaism). In particular, as a Christian I was taught to view the creation of man as the pinnacle of God’s creation, the ultimate form of life that was meant to exist. I was also taught to view the Biblical “Garden of Eden” as a “paradise” and, it was pointed out, that man’s sin got him kicked out of his original paradise. However, the Gnostics (and now I suggest also Kabbalists) see things quite differently. In fact, the way Gnostics see creation and the garden of Eden is nearly opposite of modern Christianity and that is the very reason the “church” has long labeled Gnostics as heretics and devil worshipers.
In the Gnostic view, we human beings are actually all spiritual beings that have been trapped or imprisoned in our physical bodies by a creator God that has caused us to forget what we really are. We are therefore being forced to live in a physical prison we call earth (or more largely our physical universe) because we don’t realize that we don’t belong here. Even the Greek word translated in the Bible into English as “paradise” literally means in the original Greek “a pen or cage in which to keep animals” (you should really look that one up, it’s totally true!) Basically, the Gnostic understanding, we are all living in a giant “zoo” for the amusement or entertainment of the creator much like a human might make an ant farm to watch over the little ants making tunnels in the sand. The Greek “Paradise” is actually understood by Gnostics and perhaps Kabbalists as a prison or cage meant to keep spiritual beings trapped.
To be even more clear, in the Gnostic view, the one we call “God” created a prison for spiritual beings and entrapped us all in a pen, separating us from himself and our true nature for the purpose of being worshiped. The Zohar might suggest that the creator has placed us behind 10 veils or curtains known as the Sfirot to hide us from our true nature. One might logically conclude therefore that this was a bit of a selfish act on the part of that “God”, trapping spiritual beings in a prison and hiding our true nature from us so we can worship him as superior when we are in fact exactly like him. Furthermore, according to the Bible, when another spiritual being tried to educate us (this new creation) that we are NOT merely animals nor meant to be in a physical pen but in fact are LIKE God, that being was cursed by God and also “cast down” or trapped in a physical prison. The Bible refers to this being as the serpent, the devil, who tried to trick man. However, in Gnostic understanding the serpent was not tricking us at all but rather trying to enlighten us to the truth that we are NOT animals and that we can be like God. He was telling us that we are being deceived by our creator. To the Gnostics (and it appears also the Kabbalist), it is therefore the goal of all physical beings to become awakened to this realization of who and what we really are through Gnosis (or knowledge) and therefore escape our physical prison (i.e. become enlightened and leave the prison that is our physical reality).
This all gives way to a lot of confusion on the part of those reading the Kabbalah. On the one hand it is using the books of our known “Bible” (i.e. the “Old Testament”) as the source of it’s understanding but the interpretation of those writings is VASTLY different than what you and I have been taught by the controlling organized religions. To the Kabbalist, the stories of the Bible are meant to hide or disguise from the average person their true meaning. Jesus himself is recorded as explaining this very concept when his disciples asked him why it was he speaks in parables. His response is something along the lines of “so that seeing they will not see and hearing they will not hear”. The average person is supposed to hear the stories and take it on face value, taking everything literally and focusing on the details of the story as if it is the spiritual truth. In fact, however, the true spiritual meaning of the story is hidden in the symbols, the numbers and allegories being used. It’s not the actual story that matters, but what the secret teaching behind it is (according to Gnosticsm).