The Chicken Qabalah of Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford: Dilettante's Guide to What You Do and Do Not Need to Know to Become a Qabalist

The main aim of this book is to serve as an introduction to the Qabalah, which is a form of Jewish mysticism and magic. Whether this objective is achieved will ultimately be left to the reader but hopefully this review will make people give it a red hot go.Lon begins the book by introducing his alter ego the Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford (I say alter ego but word around the water cooler is that the Rabbi really does exist and is currently on tour. I tried to see said Rabbi but I was told that he wouldn't be visiting my home town... strange as I hadn't told them where I was from). He then proceeds to slowly build up information without the readers knowledge. The use of humour is well placed to keep the reader interested and as much of the later material uses the earlier, information is readily retained. All the important stuff that a hermetic Qabalist needs is here,The Tree of Life, the paths, the Hebrew letters and their meanings, the four Qabalistic worlds, Gematria, Notariqon, Temura and last but definately not least the Tarot.I seriously liked this book. Its fun and relaxed style made me pay closer attention to the material than other Qabalah texts that I have read (damn they can be so dry!) and there were some serious points of inspiration. That interview on the Chicken Tarot was excellent and quite frankly made me look at the tarot in a completely different light. I can understand that some people would feel that the book doesn't give enough information but to those people I say read it again and read between the lines! (its mostly white but every now and then the printer skips and there is a dot) If you still don't like it then that's fine cause I am a Chicken Qabalist and I aint gonna worry 'bout it. It's not the end of the road but merely the start so remember that too.On a more serious note, there are those out there who would get really angry that this ancient form of mysticism has been injected with humour. Well life should be fun and filled with laughter so why not the spiritual system we use? If you can't see that God loves a good laugh then you have missed the joke entirely.So, do I think that Mr DuQuette has achieved his goal in introducing the Qabalah in a user friendly and fun way? Hell yes. Would I recommend this book to others? Hell yes and I already have.

Don’t be put off by the title of this book—I have no idea why he chose the term “chicken”—but I can’t recommend it highly enough. I have been drawn to the subject of hermetic Qabalah for a very long time, ever since I first ran across Gareth Knight’s wonderful “A Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism” in the early 1970s. But as marvelous as that two-volume set is, I had the same problem with it as I subsequently had with other highly regarded books on the subject I acquired, such as Dion Fortune’s “Mystical Qabalah” and Israel Regardie’s “A Garden of Pomegranates,” namely trying to wrap my mind around the many levels of abstraction within the Tree of Life. I’m not a stupid person, but as soon as they start describing the progression of manifestation from the highest to lowest Sepharoth, my brain seems to shut down and drift away. I understand that one goes from nothingness at Kether to the physical world in Malkuth, but the various descriptions they provide for the eight stages in between become just so many printed words on a page, with no recognizable relevance to my own experience.Enter Lon Milo Duquette and his fictitious Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford, through whom Duquette accomplishes the seemingly impossible, namely to make the entire subject of Qabalah great fun without trivializing it. His methods are inspired, such as his brilliant depiction of the Four Worlds of the Tree as a four-story furniture store, or providing the Rabbi’s screenplay for a special-effects movie of a human autopsy to depict the levels of the soul. And his letter-by-letter analysis of the Hebrew alphabet is the best intro to that arcane subject I’ve ever seen. As odd as some of his methods may seem, they leave me feeling I’m actually starting to grasp some of this stuff, which is a pretty delightful experience.Duquette is capable of being profoundly moving, such as when he quotes the last written words of Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford: “My Love for God and God’s Love for Me springs from the Great Secret we share. The Secret is—God and I will achieve Supreme Enlightenment at the same moment.” Yet amazingly, as insightful as the Rabbi Clifford is, he also manages to simultaneously be hysterically funny—I absolutely howled out loud when he quotes one of his fictitious student’s observation that Malkuth, the tenth Sephirah, “hangs from the three Triads like a cosmic dingleberry.” That’s an image that, like most of this book, I won’t soon forget. Is this in any way blasphemous? As Rabbi Clifford frequently says throughout the book, “Hell no! You’re a Chicken Qabalist! Don’t worry about it.” Amen.

Chicken Qabalah is one of the books that has changed and informed my own practice. It's clear, easy to understand, and delivered in the tone of funny friend. It goes above and beyond to give the beginner a firm foundation and introduction to the basics of Qabalah, and is like a cheat sheet for more scholarly works, or those works delivered with an air of mystique. 10/10 would recommend.

One of the best introductory books about Qabalah. The concept of "Chicken Qabalah" is so obvious and so genious that made me an admirer of Mr. Duquette's books and writting style.

Loved the humor, loved the subject. a treasure for the price in any occult book collection.

No ha sido la primera vez que tropiezo con dificultades para tratar de comprender a la mística judía. Especialmente no desde una perspectiva filosófica o erudita, sino desde la practicidad dela magia. Borges o Scholem pueden dar ciertas pautas para comprender la primera; la segunda se me había vuelto opaca y volátil al leer lo de Crowley, Regardie o Lêvi. No reniego de sus trabajos, y ahora con este libro puede releerlos y analizarlos con más cuidado y comprensión, es sólo, como dije, que no me parece que se trata de libros para principiantes. Quizá sea culpa mía, lo sé; pero creo que de poco o nada sirve ya la poca claridad al hablar de magia. No es necesario proteger la información sagrada, finalmente el uso que se hace de ella es independiente de la misma. La misteriosa y ambigua prosa de los antiguos esoteristas para iniciar a los perdidos en el lenguaje sagrado queda atrás con este libro. Yo lo aplaudo: la sencillez, la erudición, el humor, y sobre todo, la practicidad de lo escrito lo hace una obra de incuestionable valor para el mago contemporáneo. Resulta claro, al mirar y remirar el libro, que un libro para principiantes puede adolecer de información más completa para ejercer la Cábala de manera más profunda, pero por fortuna, el autor se apiada del lector extraviado y da al final una rica bibliografía para seguir el aprendizaje más a fondo. Duquette es un chingón.

This is by far the most entertaining primer I the Qabalah that once ever read. Well worth the time spent curling up and reading.