Despite the efforts of Christian leaders to stamp out heresy, the Middle Ages were rife with

many forms of superstition and black magic. While the alchemists sought to transform base

metals into gold, a new dialectic of mysticism, the Kabbalah, became a potent force throughout

Europe. "Cabala" simply means traditions. It was formulated as the Book of Zohar, written by

the Jewish mystic Moses ben Shemtob de Leon in 1280 A.D. as a midrash on the basic law.

Legend had it that when God gave the Law to Moses, he also gave a second revelation as to the

secret meaning of the Law. It was forbidden to write down this secret meaning for centuries; it

was passed along orally to a select group of initiates. "Secret meanings" are basic to the

"mystery" cults. Theosophy is based on secret meanings; its doctrines were taken directly from

the Kabbalah, yet the most widely circulated book on American cults, "The Kingdom of the

Cults" by Walter Martin, Bethany Press, 1965, in the chapter on Theosophy, does not once

mention the Kabbalah.

The Book of Zohar is described as a theosophical system based on the ten Sephiroth, or divine

emanations, and twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet comprising the names of God. In

1492, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain sent teachers of the Kabbalah throughout Europe.

Their doctrines produced the most dominant school of philosophy of the Renaissance, the

Neoplatonic School. Neoplatonism, in turn, became the fount of other philosophical

developments, which led directly to the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the Age of

Revolution.

Zohar stresses the talmudic legend that demons on earth originated in sexual congress between

humans and demonic powers, creating such well known demons as Lilith. For this reason,

demonic rites always emphasize sexual acts. The Neolatonists were widely criticized because

many of its teachers and students were well known for their involvement in homosexuality.

Neoplatonism combined hermetic writings with Gnosticism, organized against the background

of the Kabbalah. It emphasized internal illumination (a precept which led directly to the

development of the Illuminati cult in Germany), ecstasy, and the correlation of mysticism and

nationalism. Neoplatonism's attraction to its adherents was the offer of "liberation of the self"

through mystical experience.