Primary texts of Kabbalah

According to Josephus, such writings were in the possession of the Essenes and were jealously guarded by them against disclosure, for which they claimed a certain antiquity (see Philo, De Vita Contemplativa, iii., and Hippolytus, Refutation of all Heresies, ix.

It offers a cosmogony based upon the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, connected with Jewish chronology and Messianology, while at the same time insisting upon the heptad (7) as the holy number, rather than upon the decadic (10) system adopted by the later haggadists and observable in the Sefer Yetzirah.

The Pythagorean idea of the creative powers of numbers and letters was shared with Sefer Yetzirah and was known in the time of the Mishnah before 200 CE.

Early elements of Jewish mysticism can be found in the non-Biblical texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls, such as the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice.

Kabbalists attribute Sefer Yetzirah to the patriarch Abraham, though the text itself offers no claim as to authorship and modern scholars consider it medieval.

These texts primarily focus either on how to achieve a heavenly ascent through the Hekhalot and what to expect there, or on drawing down angelic spirits to interact and help the adept.

[6] Sefer haḤesheq (Hebrew: ספר החשק "Book of Delight"), a kabbalistic treatise dealing with the Divine names and their efficacy in mystical practices.

In order to understand my intention regarding [the meaning of] Qolot [voices] I shall hand down to you the known Qabbalot, some of them having been received from mouth to mouth from the sages of [our] generation, and others that I have received from the books named Sifrei Qabbalah composed by the ancient sages, the Kabbalists, blessed be their memory, concerning the wondrous topics; and other [traditions) bestowed on me by God, blessed be He, which came to me from ThY in the form of the Daughter of the Voice, [Bat Qol],these being the higher Qabbalot.

[7]Zohar (זהר) ("Splendor") – the most important text of Kabbalah, which among some Kabbalists has achieved canonical status as part of the Oral Torah.

Although kabbalists attribute it to Simeon ben Yohai, it in fact dates to c. 1285 CE, and was at least largely composed by Moses de Leon.

It is a mystical commentary on the Torah, written in an artificial[8] mixture of the Babylonian Aramaic dialects[9][10][11][12] in Targum Onkelos[10][11][12] and the Talmud.

[9][10][11][12] Pardes Rimonim (in Hebrew: פרדס רימונים) (Garden of Pomegranates) – the magnum opus of Moshe Cordovero (1522–1570), published in the 16th century.

Etz Hayim (in Hebrew: עץ חיים) ("Tree [of] Life") is a text of the teachings of Isaac Luria collected by his disciple Chaim Vital.

Supposedly Shmuel Vital had a dream that he was to exhume his father's grave and remove certain writings leaving the others buried.