Chicken Qabalah

[Joan Marie]

In the 1962 movie "The Miracle Worker" there is a scene at the end where the young Helen Keller (Patty Duke) and her teacher Annie Sullivan (Anne Bancroft) are having their millionth physical tussle and through it all Annie continues spelling words into Helen's hands in an exercise that seems to be more and more futile. Will this little girl, completely cut off from the world since infancy ever understand what the strange gestures in her hand are? That they are letters, and the letters make words and the words stand for things.

Then suddenly Helen's face changes. She suddenly realises that W-A-T-E-R spells water and water is that cool wet stuff coming out of the pump and pouring all over her hand as Annie spells the word into it. But that's not all. She suddenly realises that everything has a name, and that she can know those names. And now she can't learn fast enough. After years in darkness she is now connected and wants to learn everything there is.

The penny dropped! And a whole world opens up to her.

This is a very dramatic example and forgive me for using it in reference to my own struggles with learning certain things, in this case The Qabalah. But I have always been impressed by that scene, that representation of an AH-HA moment that happens suddenly.

I took the phrase "penny dropped" from Nemia who has described herself having that moment after much study and frustration, to suddenly see the door kicked open and so much making sense.

So all this preamble is to ask about a book. Has anyone here read Lon Milo DuQuette's book "The Chicken Qabalah?"
I've read about it and I can't help but think it might just help kick that door open for me. He takes a very different approach and I feel like that may be just what I need to get the penny to drop for me. He uses humour and story telling and I feel like that may appeal to my way of thinking.

Has anyone read it?

[Nemia]

I did, and I must say that it's okay but also confusing. I read it AFTER my penny dropped. And yes, it was a bit like Helen Keller....

[Pen]

I've read it too, and enjoyed it very much - I think I could read and enjoy anything by Lon Milo DuQuette. I found the information itself fairly easy to grasp, but there comes a point in the book where one has to slow down and apply oneself in a fairly dedicated way, which requires more time and motivation that I had then.

[dodalisque]

It's one of my favorite books, and like Pen I can read Lon anytime on any subject. I would recommend this as the perfect introduction to qabalah. Lon can somehow convince you that you understand the slipperiest concepts - such as the three levels of nothingness from which the universe emerges. The book is written through the mouthpiece of an invented personality Lon calls Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford, the kind of crazy Jewish saint/mystic that is allowed to say outrageous things that Lon himself writing as himself might not be able to get away with. I particularly liked his theory early in the book that the Arc of the Covenant contained all the necessary ingredients to become a huge traveling battery capable of delivering deadly electric shocks to those that trespassed. No wonder the few adepts that entered often did not live to tell the tale of their encounter with the divine. Who needs Indiana Jones? Tremendous fun, and how many books about the qabalah can claim to be that?! But of course it is highly informative and mind-expanding too.

[Nemia]

It certainly is, and I'm also a big fan of Milo (loved his book about oracles, not to mention the Thoth book which is really good and well explained) but I ask myself sometimes how someone who's not used to crazy Jewish humour can understand what's serious and what is not.

I may have to re-read the chicken book

When did my penny drop? I can't even remember exactly. I just remember that I started making my own tree and suddenly it all seemed completely logical and evident.

I can't imagine how hard it must be if you don't know Hebrew. It's not only the Hebrew words and terminology but also the intricate relationship between letters and numbers.

[dodalisque]

I wonder if anyone has written a book about the similarities between the Tree of Life and the chakras. What's a few extra nodes of consciousness among friends?

[HOLMES]

came out 1997,
it deals with the spheres of life.. and not so much the paths.

[Joan Marie]

So I got sidetracked by DuQuette's book, "My Life With the Spirits" which was wonderful,and now I'm a couple of days into "The Chicken Qabalah" and I think this might just open the door for me some.

I must say though that I'm beginning to see that I actually have picked up some things in the past few years, reading Nemia's posts, a workshop I once attended in Portland, and other dabblings here and there (Mel Meleen and Susan T. Changs "Fortune's Wheelhouse" podcast for example.)

I have more of basis than I thought and this book, so far, seems to be helping me put the puzzle pieces together and fills in cracks and adds the depth I wasn't getting before.

And it is funny as hell.

And to what Nemia said earlier, he really does try to get across the connection of the letters to numbers. I'm think I'm starting to understand that it's all these connections and the complexity of them that eventually makes you see the vastness of the connections between everything. But it is DEFINITELY too soon for me to make any attempt at explaining anything. (As I have said before, there's nothing like the confidence of someone who learned something 5 minutes ago. )

Did anybody else see the joke in the Rabbi's name, Lamed Ben Clifford?

His mother wanted to name him "El" after God, but changed it to just "L" which is the Hebrew letter Lamed.
So really his name is L. Ben Clifford, which made me think of L. Ron Hubbard.

Is it just me?

[dodalisque]

Did anybody else see the joke in the Rabbi's name, Lamed Ben Clifford?
His mother wanted to name him "El" after God, but changed it to just "L" which is the Hebrew letter Lamed.
So really his name is L. Ben Clifford, which made me think of L. Ron Hubbard.
Is it just me?

I'm sure you're right that Lon probably had L. Ron Hubbard somewhere in mind when he came up with the name for an alter-ego. But doesn't "Lamed" also mean "blessed" and is used as an honorific for spiritual teachers in the same way as "Sri" for Hindus. And isn't Clifford his father's name, or something like that, I forget. I'll do some research and get back to you.

[Nemia]

"Blessed" for a deceased person is zayin-lamed, ז"ל, as shortend form of "blessed be his/her memory", זכרונו או זכרונה לברכה

There is the old idea of the lamed-vavnikim, the 36 hidden righteous people in this world who save it for all humanity - without even knowing they're doing it. I don't think Milo DuQuette had them in mind

Lamed is strongly connected to learning - the root LMD למד means studying, learning. Melamed is a teacher, talmid a pupil, talmud the body of learning, lemida the learning prozess and limmudim a course of studies. All words derived from the root LMD.

[dodalisque]

There is the old idea of the lamed-vavnikim, the 36 hidden righteous people in this world who save it for all humanity - without even knowing they're doing it. I don't think Milo DuQuette had them in mind

That sounds to me like exactly the sort of thing Lon might have had in mind. Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford is from way out in left field, qabalisitically speaking.

[Joan Marie]

"Blessed" for a deceased person is zayin-lamed, ז"ל, as shortend form of "blessed be his/her memory", זכרונו או זכרונה לברכה

There is the old idea of the lamed-vavnikim, the 36 hidden righteous people in this world who save it for all humanity - without even knowing they're doing it. I don't think Milo DuQuette had them in mind

Lamed is strongly connected to learning - the root LMD למד means studying, learning. Melamed is a teacher, talmid a pupil, talmud the body of learning, lemida the learning prozess and limmudim a course of studies. All words derived from the root LMD.

Wonderful! There are double, maybe triple or quadruple meanings here.

My mind made the connection to L. Ron Hubbard based firstly on that his mother named Rabbi Ben "L", just the letter "L" which is funny, but then also that the 2 names (L Ben Clifford and L Ron Hubbard) have the same number of syllables and Clifford and Hubbard both have double letters.

That's just how my mind works. It probably makes no sense, although I would be curious to know if there is any connection Gematria-wise. (she said as if she knew what she was speaking about )

[Nemia]

I will check it at home

[TheLoracular]

Lon Milo Duquette is probably one of my favorite modern Western occultists and every book he's written has delighted me. He is funny and humble and those two traits combined with his scholarship and wisdom puts a smile on my face every time I see his name mentioned.

The Chicken Qabalah came into my life nearly a decade after I'd been reading every QBL and Kabbalah I could get my hands on and so it didn't teach me QBL so much as it helped me just appreciate his style and opinions. It made complete sense to me as someone who'd done things The Hard Way he gently pokes fun at.

I can't talk too much about QBL at this point because I've moved on from using the now standardized Tree Glyph and traditional correspondences with paths/letters/cards to doing personal work with what Aryeh Kaplan called "The Natural Array" in his extraordinary book on the Sefer Yetzirah. But I had to steep myself in a decade of reading and thinking to go that direction and now, another decade after that, I don't think I can talk traditional QBL in ways that are helpful to people just embarking on learning it. I'd just confuse or annoy, lol. Eventually, I might start talking about "The Natural Array" on the forum but that is most definitely a topic for 2021.

I would take Chicken Qabalah to heart though and work from there. My suggestion for a good place to move onto, especially to be introduced to even more concepts from a modern and open-minded perspective would be A Kabbalah For the Modern World by Migene Gonzalez-Wippler. My copy was printed in 1993 and I believe the one with a new cover on Amazon has been revised and expanded. This was the book that gave me my own big Lightbulb "AHA!!" moment and I keep picking it up and re-reading every few years. I should do the same with Chicken Qabalah though and grab Son of Chicken - which I haven't read.

[jobarghest]

X

[dodalisque]

I want to get it, but can't decide between that and the Son of Chicken Kabala! I fear I'll get confused if I get both, and I'm rapidly running out of shelpspace, but the rituals in the latter look fun...

I'm not sure the rituals would mean very much unless you had absorbed the material in the first book.

[newoldians]

I read the book about 10 year ago. I thought it was an excellent book.
It really helped me understanding the topic best amongst all other books on the subject I own (I own a few other Cabala books), although still my understanding on the subject was just for the newbie level.
I still have the book somewhere in the house, and this thread is reminding to find the book and read again.