The Greek Qabalah: Alphabetical Mysticism and Numerology in the Ancient World

by Kieren Barry

This book will be of interest to a wide range of readers, from students of Ancient History and early Christianity, to Qabalists and modern magicians. Extensive notes and citations from original sources will make this authoritative work an essentialreference for researchers and practitioners for years to come. Includes are appendices for tables of alphabetic symbolism, a list of authors, and a numeric dictionary of Greek words, which represents the largest collection of gematria in print. Index.

Genres: Occult, Mysticism, Nonfiction, History

312 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 1999

Reviews

[Constantinos Nterziotis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fallible translation in Hellenic, with mistakes in references and even in diagrams. Zero commenting. The writer doesn't has enough knowledge of Hellenic history and earlier times, civilizations, so he doesn't know the discoveries of Hellenic tablets with letters of the alphabet or he denies to accept that besides that the Minoan and Mycenaic sphenoid and linear forms gave birth to the alphabet, or the other opinion that they co-existed with the alphabet. This later view justifies the findings of earlier tablets with Hellenic words.

Anyway, I expected a book comparison between Neoplatonism and Neopythagorism with Hermetic kabbalah, but that's not something you will read in the book. You will read on Scholastic or Literal Kabbalah and its methods, how those were discovered in ancient Hellas and how they became the basis of Kabbalah, the tradition we all know today.

As the book moves, it becomes more interesting. The last chapters are fantastic. He has no fear to write that the system is based in the Hellenic philosophy. I wish that professor Barry will write another volume based on his chapter "the Hebrews" to correlate it with modern Kabbalah. I would also like to read another study for the PGM as he touches that subject too. I would definately suggest this book to any occultist. Many thanks to the writer and the publisher.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gonna give this 3 stars because I simply am not educated enough to understand it. Do think the title was misleading as the meaning of the Qabalah wasn’t really brought up at all as I had hoped and what the title would suggest. Despite that I still gained knowledge and found interesting pieces of information

[Selina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exceptional!

The amount of knowledge and research that transcribe through reading it is beyond amazing. Exceptional work. I plan on buying the print version as a reference. Highly recommended to anyone interested in numerology, Qabalah or even just
Greek language semiotics

[Fred Kohn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was attracted to this book by its strange title; is there a Greek Qabalah? The author quickly apologizes for the anachronistic title, which made me wonder why he simply did not name the book The Greek Origins of Qabalah, which, though less sensational, would have been a more accurate description of what this book is about. Once over this little bump, the book flowed nicely. Like most people, I suppose, I was particularly interested in the most famous instance of gematria, the number 666 of John's Apocalypse. I was satisfied with the author's identification of this number with the Roman emperor Nero, but not with his identification of the seven heads of the beast with seven past emperors. Nero was Rome's fifth emperor, and he was followed in quick succession by four emperors, making any reasonable chronological placement of the writing of Revelation difficult for this interpretation. At any rate this was a minor quirk in the midst of dozens of interesting examples of gematria and other numerological techniques from the ancient world. As an added bonus, there is a table at the end giving the numerical values of various Greek names and phrases for modern mystics.

[Susan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Poorly written. Basically his dissertation reprinted but nothing is fleshed out with no outside substantiating evidence given. His theory that the Hebrew Alphabet comes from Greek and not Egyptian hangs on a flimsy chain. The only thing that the Greeks under Alexander did was translate the written Hebrew in 322 as the Septuagint.


Read either Edward Dingle, The Typal Use of the 22 Letters of the Hebrew Alphabet or John Lamb's Hebrew characters derived from hieroglyphics for a rebuttal and true linkage of the Hebrew and Greek Qabalah to the Egyptian one. If you are really ambitious give Gardner's Egyptian Grammar a go hard to find in public domain though...give WorldCat a whirl.

Lots of nice gift throughout but without using the Egyptian as the basis it's all, in the end, a waste....

Read on.