Gaffarel, James

[birdie@netcom.com (Kathleen Ostridge)]

In relation to the Kabbalah possible connection - Gaffa.

The only thing I could find was a James Gaffarel (sounds like an 
archangel, Gaffarel...:-D...well, we could make one up!) and Mr. James 
Gaffarel provided the most accessible information on Astrology amoung the 
Jews in the CURIOSITIES of James Gaffarel. To reduce what he says to a 
sentence, the Jewish astrologers read the heavens like a book, they 
regarded it as a book, and, for the purposes of methodising its contents 
with a view to its interpretation, they collected the stars into 
hieroglyphic characters, which were, in fact, the Hebrew alphabet. The 
process was not an astrological one, but one of divination.

A summary of Gaffarel's information, will be found in Elipha's Levi's 
Rituel De La Haute Magie. Also, Transcendental Magic and Mysteries of Magic
(2nd edition 1897).

In short, he was an astrological interpreter.

Anyone in the UK near Cambridge or another University with an old and decent 
collection on Astrology and/or the Kabbalah may want to look up James 
Gaffarel and report back.

Whatever the case, the guy does sound most...ummm....curious.

Cheers,

Birdie
-- 
"A few more trips around the sun & my face will look like a fault map!" 
                                                  
                                                  - birdie@netcom.com