"The Chicken Qabalah of Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford" by Lon Milo DuQuette : A Review

To start off, let me begin with how amazingly helpful this book is! I began reading this with minimal knowledge pertaining to the Qabalah. Having only read 2 other books on the subject before this one (an act that tends to qualify most "readers" as experts on ANY subject), I was excited to see how Mr. Duquette's method of explaining things would lend itself to such a dry and often times BORING subject. This book changed my opinion greatly!

For those of you who are not familiar with Lon DuQuette's work, he is an occultist, musician, teacher, and all around funny guy. Without writing up a bio about him, I suggest looking him up, and even saying hello to him online. He's a very intelligent and personable magician whom I admire greatly. His sense of humor turns the often repetitive aspects of occult study into a comedic cartoon of sorts in my mind. I laughed through this entire book, and learned quite a bit while doing so.

Some of the topics touched upon in this book:

The ten Command-Rants: basically a short breakdown of what Qabalah is... simplified to ten basic concepts, while making a parody of the tem commandments.

Sepher Yetzirah, the book of Formation: a retelling of the Qabalistic origin story, complete with diagrams and charts helping the reader visualize the process of the origin of the universe (or rather, this incarnation on the ever running cycle of them).

Hebrew Alphabet: This is a very important aspect to the Qabalah, and this book teaches you fun little tricks to help differentiate between certain characters that seem almost identical to the untrained eye.

Four Qabalistic Worlds & Four Parts of the Soul: learn what "as above, so below" actually means!

Tree of Life: The Glyph that most people think of when you say you're studying the Qabalah, when really it is just one of the many keys to understanding it.

Tarot & Holy Guardian Angel: How does the Tarot play into the Qabalah? well, really the Qabalah is the reason the Tarot works at all, read the book for more on that. Also, the HGA is a topic heavily discussed in most Thelemic circles.

I highly recommend this book to beginners as well as adepts, as it not only explains things in an entertaining way, but it provides little bits of insight I've not seen or heard anywhere else on a vastly covered topic. There's even a section where he explains the difference between "Qabalah", "Cabala" and "Kabbalah" for those who have often wondered.

Follow the link below to purchase your copy of this amazing book, you will NOT be let down!

~Rev. Skw¥rm