Richard Smoley on Secrets of the Kabbalah

Summary

Esoteric author Richard Smoley discusses his new book 'Kabbalah: Treasure House of Secret Wisdom' and the practical, non-sectarian side of Jewish mysticism. He explains the Tree of Life, the doctrine of four worlds, and argues that Kabbalah, Gnosticism and early Christianity are far more intertwined than most people believe. Along the way he covers the Zohar, Jung's mapping of the psyche onto the Tree, ambiguous angels, a Kabbalistic reading of the Fall, and the Kabbalah Centre made famous by Madonna.

Key takeaways

• 1Smoley began serious Kabbalah study in 1978 in an Oxford group founded by Glyn Davies and Warren Kenton, who wrote about 15 books as Z'ev ben Shimon Halevi.
• 2He cites a Mesopotamian bas-relief from the reign of Sargon (c. 2300 BC) showing a seven-level tree as a possible prototype of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.
• 3He claims the Apostle Paul's ascent to the 'third heaven' (2 Corinthians) shows Paul was versed in first-century Hekhalot mysticism.
• 4Carl Jung wrote that his ego corresponds to the sefirah Yesod and his Self to Tiferet, so his psychology maps onto the Tree of Life.
• 5The key texts are the Sefer Yetzirah (about 2,000 words, dated 2nd-6th century AD), the Sefer Bahir (11th-century Provence) and the Zohar, attributed to Moses de Leon; Daniel Matt's English edition of the Zohar runs to 12 volumes.
• 6Smoley reads Genesis through three Hebrew verbs (bara, yatzar, asah) matching three of the four worlds, and suggests the Fall was planned and necessary for human embodiment.
• 7Madonna's Kabbalah Centre was founded by Philip Berg (born Gruberger), a student of the Lurianic Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag.
• 8He argues the Emerald Tablet and Corpus Hermeticum were attempts to preserve fading Egyptian wisdom, citing the Asclepius lament for Egypt.

Glossary terms

Source

Transcript excerpt

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Excerpt from Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio, Oct 8, 2026. Rights remain with the original creators. Hear the full episode at the source.