The Mystical Qabalah

The Tree of Life forms the ground-plan of the Western Esoteric Tradition and is the system upon which pupils are trained in the Fraternity of the Inner Light. The transliteration of Hebrew words into English is the subject of much diversity of opinion, every scholar appearing to have his own system. In these pages I have availed myself of the alphabetical table given by MacGregor Mathers in The Kabbalah Unveiled because this book is the one generally used by esoteric students. He himself does not adhere to his own table systematically, however, and even uses different spellings for the same words. This is very confusing for anyone who wishes to use the Gematric method of elucidation, in which letters are turned into numbers. When, therefore, Mathers gives alternative trans literations, I have followed the one which coincides with that given in his own table. The capitalisation employed in these pages may also appear unusual, but it is the one traditionally used among students of the Western Esoteric Tradition. In this system, common words, such as earth or path, are used in a technical sense to denote spiritual principles. When this is done, a capital is used to indicate the fact. When a capital is not used, it may be taken that the word is to be understood in its ordinary sense...