Musings on overblown mysticism

There was a time, lo these many years ago, that I seriously considered taking up the cloth and becoming a rabbi.

To that end, I did a lot of reading.  And when you’re Jewish and studying the sacred books, inevitably you run across medieval writer Moses de Leon’s Zohar, first published in the 13th century in Spain, which is the basis of what most people know as Kabbalah.  Sadly, the Zohar is more than likely a fabrication sewn out of whole cloth by de Leon, rather than the redacted writings of R. Shimon bar Yochai, who allegedly spent 15 years in a cave hiding from the Romans and being inspired to write it by the Prophet Elijah.

So in other words, to me the Zohar has about as much authority as Joseph Smith’s golden leaves.  It’s pretty and poetic and very spiritual, but as far as it being the Word of God as handed down on Sinai, nah.  It’s bullshit.  (I will admit that if de Leon wrote it himself, he must have had a fantastic background in Jewish religious textual tradition.)

With that background, given that I didn’t join the Masons until I was 39, it frankly amazed me to find so many esoteric Masons who spent far too much time studying Kabbalah and trying to apply it to Masonry (or claiming that Masonry was essentially Kabbalistic from its founding, whatever).

Dudes, I hate to break it to you, but it’s a forgery.  A fake.  A fraud.  A conundrum, a prevarication, a lie.  Masonry is more likely to have actual ties to the Egyptians, Solomon’s Temple, and the Knights Templar (as claimed by some) than it is to have them to the Zohar and Kabbalah.  Me, I think Freemasonry as we have it today was spun out of whole cloth by the members of the Royal Society in the late 17th century, as a means of educating the middle classes who didn’t have access to higher education at that time.  (And that’s not an original idea with me; Chris Hodapp first postulated it so far as I know.)

But if it rings your spiritual bells to think otherwise, Brothers, don’t mind me.  It’s at least a prettier philosophy than some I can think of.