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Abold line-by-line re-examination of the first 3 chapters of Genesis that reveals the essential nature of mind and creativity.
List of contents
Introduction
Part I
Window of Manifestation
1 The Essential Nature of Creativity
The First Word of Genesis
2 Blueprint of the Creative Process
Commentary on the First Chapter of Genesis
Part II
PriMordial Gnosis and Its Obscuration
3 The EdeNic State
Commentary on the Second Chapter of Genesis
4 The CoNsequence of Habit
Commentary on the Third Chapter of Genesis
Appendix I
Kabbalistic SyNopsis of the Three Chapters
Appendix II
Kabbalistic Array of names
Index
About the Author
About the author
David Chaim Smith was born in 1964 in Queens, New York. His early career was as a visual artist throughout the 1980s. In 1990 he began an immersion into the root sources of Alchemy and the Hermetic and Hebrew traditions of the Kabbalah. In 1996 he abandoned visual art for a total dedication to spiritual practice, from which came a unique blend of practical mysticism and creative innovation. This blend coalesced while working with an obscure thirteenth-century text called The Fountain of Wisdom, which he mapped out diagrammatically in notebooks during his ten-year hiatus from visual art. The resulting symbol vocabulary served as the basis for his 2006 return to art, generating the content for several books. He currently lives in the suburbs of New York City with his wife, Rachel.
Summary
Hidden within the first three chapters of Genesis rests one of the greatest jewels of Western mystical literature. For millennia religious literalism has dominated our understanding of the Bible, imprisoning its subtle inner wisdom within the most coarse and superficial aspects of the narrative. Generations have been led to believe that Genesis 1-3 is only a primitive proto-cosmic history, a mythological explanation of the human moral disposition, a religious fairy tale. But by accepting the text as pure kabbalistic metaphor, the mystical content of Genesis springs forth, revealing the Divine nature of creativity as well as a new understanding of the human mind.
Deconstructing each line of Genesis 1-3 with esoteric methods derived from the oral teachings of the Kabbalah, David Chaim Smith reveals how the ten sefirot, collectively known as the Tree of Life, are not simply a linear hierarchy. They are a unified interdependent whole with ten interactive functions, forming the template through which creative diversity manifests. Through acts of creation and creativity, the mind expresses its Divine nature. Through our Divine creative power, we are able to touch upon Ain Sof (the infinite), the lifeblood of all creative expression. Smith's line-by-line examination of Genesis 1-3 reveals a complete model not only of Divine creativity but also of the predicament of the human mind, of the Divine nature of consciousness as well as our inability to recognize the mind's Divinity.
With this new interpretation, which removes the concept of a Creator God, we are able to transcend the contrasting notions of "being" and "non-being" at the heart of conventional habits of perception and awaken a new mystical understanding of Unity and the fathomless depth of Divinity.
Additional text
“A unique mystical voice out of a Blakean tradition, The Kabbalistic Mirror of Genesis is a mind-expanding spiritual text that will both clarify and transform you. Smith has rethought biblical basics from the ground up (‘with-beginningness’) providing insights into the profound depths of mind, perception, reality, life, creativity, luminosity, and transcendence. . . . This is kabbalistic commentary from a living practitioner that will help us immeasurably to help heal the world.”
