The Abba Tradition

By Michael Hattwick

The ABBA Tradition is the spiritual and mystical tradition that lies deep within and behind western religions and modern cultures.

It is the worldview that is the source, substance, and infrastructure of Judaism and Christianity. It is the one great tradition behind the Hebrew and Greek languages, the Old and New Testaments, ancient religions, and modern science.

Whether you call it Kabbalah, the Four World Tradition or something else, it transcends the separation between the historic faiths and, more importantly, teaches a way of reconciliation and reunion.

This book helps Christians discover the profound Jewish tradition that Jesus of Nazareth lived and taught, and also highlights one of the greatest Jews of all time: Joshua be Miriam of Nazareth, who first brought the Gentile nations to the holy one of Israel.

Heal the wounds that separate us one from another, Jew from Christian, brother from sister – and discover the interrelated worlds of physicality, psychality, spirituality, and divinity with the wisdom in this book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Aug 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9781480891517

Michael Hattwick

Michael Hattwick was born in Illinois and raised in Texas. He was educated at Harvard, Georgetown, and the University of London. He is a practicing physician board-certified in internal medicine and preventive medicine. He lives in Virginia with his wife, Barbara. He has three children and two grandchildren.

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Copyright © 2020 Michael Hattwick.

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Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®,

Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1

995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

ISBN: 978-1-4808-9150-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-9149-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-9151-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020910118

Archway Publishing rev. date: 08/05/2020

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

An Introduction to the ABBA Tradition

1.     The Four Worlds

2.     The Tree of Life

3.     The Ladder of Consciousness

4.     The ABBA Tradition

5.     The Physical World

6.     The Soul World

7.     The Spiritual World

8.     Divinity

9.     The Beatitudes and Soul Work

10.   The Lord’s Prayer and the Royal Highway

List of Illustrations

Figure 1-1: In the Beginning

Figure 1-2: The Four Worlds of Genesis

Figure 1-3: The Four Worlds

Figure 2-1: The Inner Structure of the Four Worlds, the Menorah, and the Cross.

Figure 2-2: The Tree of Life in the Four Worlds

Figure 2-3: The Fruit on the Tree of Life

Figure 2-4: Naming the Spheres in Hebrew

Figure 2-5.1: The Four Laws

Figure 2-5.2: Forms within the Four Worlds

Figure 2-6: The Greek Cross

Figure 2-7: Man as the Tree of Life

Figure 3-1: The Four Worlds and Jacob’s Ladder

Figure 3-2: Jacob’s Ladder in detail

Figure 3-3: The Four Worlds and the Ladder of Consciousness

Figure 3-4. The Lightening Flash

Figure 3-5. Raising the Serpent in the Desert

Figure 4-1 ABBA’s Family

Figure 4-2: The Way to the Father is through Life and Truth

Figure 5-1: Levels of Physicality

Figure 5-2: The Body as the Tree of Life

Figure 6-1: The Five Is

Figure 6-2: Anatomy of the Soul

Figure 6-3: Triads of the Soul

Figure 6-4: Lower Soul Triads

Figure 7-1: The Seven Heavens

Figure 7-2: The Inhabitants of Heaven

Figure 7-3: The Inhabitants of Heaven and the Soul

Figure 7-4: The Ten Commandments on the Ladder of Consciousness

Figure 7-5: The Ten Commandments

Figure 8-1: The Attributes of God

Figure 8-2: The Names of God

Figure 9-1: The Soul World and Soul Work

Figure 9-2: The Beatitudes

Figure 9-3: Psychological Development

Figure 9-4: Spiritual Development

Figure 9-5: The Be Attitudes

Figure 9-6: The Hands and Wings of the Soul

Figure 10-1: The Great Chain of Being

Figure 10-2: The Seven Seals on the Staff of Stars

Figure 10-3: The Ten Eyes

Figure 10-4: The Lord’s Prayer on Jacob’s Ladder

Acknowledgments

T he Bible calls them that great cloud of witnesses. I call them my companions on the way. They are those without whom this book would not have been written. The author gratefully acknowledges them all.

First, of course, are my fathers and mothers—my mystical mother, Laberta Weiss Hattwick; my spiritual father, Warren Kenton; my practical father, Melvin Saxton Hattwick; and Barbara Carr Hattwick, the loving mother of our children and my wife.

Next, there are my spiritual brothers and sister on this way—Harold Akrongold, a great soul wrestler and kindred spirit; Maggy Whitehouse, a wise and giving gift to the world; and Peter Dickinson, whose steady persistence helped turn ideas into paper. Beyond these are the many who share and have shared this Four World Tradition with me, with one another, and with the world. To all of these, I say, Thank you for being you.

December 26, 2010. Breezy Hilltop. Great Falls, Virginia.

Lightly revised and republished 2020.

An Introduction to the

ABBA Tradition

How This Book Came to Be Written

C onsciousness begins. Then there’s a question. And with that question we embark on an ancient and always new journey, asking who and what and where and why. So it was for me, and my questions led me to the Bible. The Bible presents itself at the center of my civilization and my church. It is a book familiar and yet strange. This book that you are reading began with a desire to understand that book.

What is the Bible really talking about? What does it mean? Why does it matter to me? These questions led me first to the Greek New Testament, and then when I rediscovered that Jesus of Nazareth was Jewish and taught and thought in Aramaic and Hebrew, I turned to the Hebrew Bible. It began with an effort to comprehend the biblical text and led to what the written tradition was about and then to the one great tradition behind both the Hebrew and Greek Old and New Testaments, a tradition that reminds us that we live in four interrelated realities, four interrelated worlds. This one great tradition is often called the Four World Tradition. In this book I call it the ABBA tradition.

One version of this tradition today is called Kabbalah. I learned this tradition through the writings and teaching of Z’ev ben Shimon Halevi, a modern Kabbalist. His series of twelve books on Kabbalah along with his teaching seminars opened my eyes to a deeper understanding. This work is dedicated especially to Z’ev ben Shimon Halevi, whose commitment to sharing this knowledge has opened many eyes. Before the beginning of this book there was a conversation I had with Halevi. Recognizing that Kabbalah was taught by Jesus, I asked Halevi to speak more about Jesus and the tradition. He responded, That is your job. And so it is.

The four world tradition is a way to connect with the Western spiritual and mystical tradition that is the source, substance, and infrastructure of Judaism and Christianity. The initial version of this book was titled Christianity and Kabbalah and was presented as a paper to the first international meeting of the Kabbalah Society in Toledo, Spain, on May 19, 1996. In that paper I said,

The Kabbalah teaches the spiritual and mystical tradition which lies deep within and behind both Judaism and Christianity. It is an unwritten tradition that testifies to the Holy One who is God of all of us, be we Jew, Christian, Moslem or any other faith. This spiritual tradition transcends the separation between the historic faiths and, more importantly, teaches a way of reconciliation and reunion. The reconciliation is with each other as we discover again that we are each members of one great Spiritual Community. And the Reunion is with God, the Holy One, One God, Our God.¹

Ultimately, this book is an attempt to help heal the wounds that separate us one from another, Jew from Christian, brother from sister. It is a book about rediscovery, reconciliation, reunion, and homecoming. It is written to help Christians discover the profound Jewish tradition that Jesus of Nazareth lived and taught. It is my hope that it also will help Jews rediscover one of the greatest Jews of all time, Joshua ben Miriam of Nazareth, who first brought the Gentile nations to the holy one of Israel. And it is also written for those who call themselves neither Jew nor Christian yet seek to know more about the meaning and purpose of existence.

Let the story begin.

CHAPTER 1

The Four Worlds

HIS STORY, HISTORY

HER STORY, HERESY

OUR STORY, ECSTASY

MY STORY, MYSTERY

²

W e live in four worlds, and yet we forget. The ABBA tradition is a way of remembering, a way of bringing together again the scattered parts of our divided selves, a way of rediscovering who we are. This book is a part of that tradition. It begins with the world around us, our everyday world, and tells us a story, a history, a his-story and a her-story. It’s our story. This story witnesses to, points to, and leads us to a transpersonal experience and mysterious encounter with the holy one that gives our life and our history its meaning and purpose. It is a book about body, soul, spirituality, and mysticism, about the Western inner tradition, the Western mystical tradition, the history mystery.

This tradition has been taught continuously—person to person—for more than four thousand years. It is one story written first in the Torah, the five books of Moses, elaborated on and retold in the prophets and writings of the Hebrew Bible, told anew in the Greek language in the New Testament and told since in many ways and many tongues. It is the story Jesus tells in the Gospels. It is the pearl of great price, the secret hidden in plain view for all who have ears to hear and eyes to see. It is this tradition that Jesus lived, knew, shared, and taught. The New Testament reveals that tradition in the life and mission of Jesus. In this book we present it once again in a modern form, attempting to share it in language and images that help us to remember that it is our story, the story of who we are and why we are now here.

This is also a book about beginnings and endings, whences and wherefores. It’s a about where we come from and where we are going. It is the whole story of who we are, and hence, it is a holy story, a story about holy things. As we follow this way, we will be remembering our tradition, and we will also be remembering who we are, putting together again the dismembered and scattered parts of our divided selves.

The living tradition that is shared in the pages that follow is called the Four World Tradition. It is the living heart, soul, mind, and essence of Judaism and Christianity and the common tradition shared by both the Old and New Testaments. This particular retelling of the Four World Tradition is presented as a way of linking Christianity back to its roots.

Christianity began within the Jewish community of Israel around 30 CE.³ The schism between Christianity and Judaism happened after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE and occurred in part as a result of that destruction. Lacking the Jerusalem temple and its sacrificial system, rabbinic Judaism continued the tradition within Jewish homes and synagogues. After 70 CE, the Christian community, which was increasingly composed of non-Jewish members, developed a Greek New Testament-based tradition that separated itself from its Jewish roots. Similarly, as the Jewish Talmud developed (and was completed around 180 CE), Christianity and its founder, Jesus, were almost entirely ignored. By the end of the second century of the first millennium of the Common Era, Christianity and Judaism had become separate religions. This will be discussed further in chapter 4.

In the first two centuries of the second millennium, the Four World Tradition reappeared in the public domain. A series of spiritual and mystical writings reintroduced this tradition in Jewish communities living within a largely Christian society in southern France and Spain. The three most important of these writings were the Sefer Yezirah,⁴ the Book Bahir,⁵ and the Zohar.⁶ Based on these books, which were written in Hebrew or Aramaic, a new awareness and understanding of the Four World Tradition developed. Over the next several centuries, this tradition came to be called Kabbalah and became known among Christians as well as Jews.

In the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the Kabbalah was introduced explicitly to the Christian community in the writings of Pico della Mirandola in Italy (c. 1450–1500)⁷ and Johann Reuchlin in Germany (c. 1475–1525).⁸ However, after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, the Jewish and Christian Kabbalah traditions once again developed separately. The Jews, who were expelled from Europe, developed Kabbalah particularly in Safed in the Holy Land. In the Christian community, the tradition developed particularly in Spain in the writings of Teresa of Avila (1515–1575) and St. John of the cross (1530–1580). After 1492, the word Kabbalah was not commonly used in Christian communities.

In the second half of the twentieth century, Kabbalah once again became openly available to all who were interested in the Western spiritual and mystical tradition. Kabbalah explicitly teaches the Four World Tradition. Kabbalah means to receive in Hebrew. What was received was both the written tradition and the unwritten, inner, spiritual, and mystical tradition that made the written a living tradition. In Judaism, the Four World Tradition is also called the way of the chariot, the Merkabah tradition, and the oral tradition. In the New Testament, it is called many things, including the mystical tradition, gnosis, wisdom, and the Way. Jesus lived in, lived out, and taught this tradition. The purpose of this book is to present the tradition to teach ourselves to rediscover anew this ancient and always new tradition.

Jesus used the word Abba, Father, as he communed with the holy one, and I believe this tradition can also be appropriately called the ABBA tradition. For this tradition is, most importantly, a guide for direct contact with the holy one, our Father, and for remembering that we are children of God. It is based on and leads to realities that come from and link us to the Creator. It both describes our relationships to higher worlds and also provides techniques we can use directly to re-experience these worlds. It is this direct contact with the higher worlds that makes the tradition living and powerful. This direct contact also makes the tradition a threat to overly rigid religious beliefs and organizations and has led to suppression and conflict. And yet the direct contact of the tradition is what has always and continues to revitalize the religious communities and institutions wherever it is found.

The Four Worlds

Physical, Psychological, Transpersonal, and Mystical

The first and most obvious of the four worlds in which we live is the physical world. This is the world that we experience around us with our physical senses. It is the world of the physicist and the physician—words that are rooted in the Greek word phusis, which means nature. It is the natural world, the world of nature. We get information about this world from our five senses or from extensions of our senses such as with telescopes, microscopes, and other sensors we use to probe into outer and inner space. To the physicist this is the world of matter and energy and their interactions. To the physician it is the world of the body, its anatomy, physiology, function, and dysfunction. But the physical world is only one of the four worlds in which we live.

The second world in which we live is the personal inner world of the individual, the psychological world. Psyche is the Greek word for soul, and therefore, this world is also appropriately called the soul world. It has a reality and a structure very different from the physical world, but that structure can be easily experienced, described, and studied. We experience this inner world continuously, although we are not always consciously aware of it. This is the inner world of our thoughts, images, and feelings. To experience it directly, we need only to close our eyes and see, with our mind’s eye, the images that we have in this inner world. These images are the stuff, the matter of the psychological world—that is a world of images, imagery, and forms. Psychology is one scientific approach to this world. We also learn about this world through the study of literature, history, movies, and television but most of all, by our individual experiences. We are as much in contact with the psychological as with the physical world, and in many ways this world is more important to us than the physical because although we share the outside physical world, each of us lives in his or her own unique psychological reality.

The third world in which we live is the transpersonal world. In this world we are in a nonphysical but shared reality. Although we share this reality with others, it has no physical existence. Like the physical and unlike the uniquely individual psychological world, this reality exists outside. Here in the third world are the shared ideas or archetypes that lie behind and give meaning to the forms and images of the psychological world. This world is the place of the meanings of our images. As images are to sensations, so meaning is to image. Here we become aware again of truths we may have forgotten as we learned to live in the physical and psychological worlds. In this world we discover we are not alone. We are part of a larger whole, members of a shared humanity, a society, a culture, a commonality. This commonality is in fact a common unity, a community, a wholeness, and therefore, a holiness. So this shared transpersonal reality is a spiritual reality, and it is appropriately called the world of the spirit, the world of spirituality. This is the world of the seven heavens, the world in which we can find the kingdom of heaven. It is also the world of creativity, the place in which creation occurs, the world of creation. Here ideas come into being that are the source of the forms we experience in the psyche and can be transformed into physical objects in the world of physicality.

The highest of the four worlds is the transcendent world of the mystic. This is the world of awareness of divinity, of being in the presence of God, of experiencing the holy one. This world, mystics tell us, lies above, beyond, beneath, and behind the world of spirituality. It transcends all three of the lower worlds. It also lies beyond the ability of mere language to describe. This ineffability makes talking about this world difficult and leads to the language of mysticism, paradox, and mystery. Although language can only point to this reality, we each have the ability to experience this world inherent in our being human, our human being. The combination of ineffability and yet accessibility of this world is sometimes called the open secret. The experience of this world is the source—for each individual—of his or her purpose in life. It is in this world that one hears the Word of the living God, that one discovers the purpose of one’s life. As meaning is to image, so purpose is to meaning. Tradition says that this world is the source of all the other worlds. Tradition also says that the Bible is both an expression of this world, the very Word of God, and a guide to our reconnection with the holy one.

We do, in fact, live in these four worlds. Take a minute now to experience the difference and the reality of the lower two worlds. Look around you at the physical world. Experience it with each of your senses. See with your eyes, and sense with your other senses the earthly world around you, your external world in which you live. What you see and sense is the physical world. Now close your eyes, and see an image of the world around you. This image is experienced in your psyche, in your soul world. You alone—and only you—can experience your soul world. It is your personal image of reality. You have just experienced moving from one reality to another, from the first to the second world and back again. In the rest of this book, we explore all four worlds and look at ways we can move from world to world, rediscovering and reexperiencing who we are.

Body, Soul, Spirit, and Divinity

The tradition teaches that not only do we live in four worlds but that we are four worlds. Human beings are composed of body, soul, spirit, and the potential for divinity. In the modern scientific world some speak as though there were no reality beyond the physical, as though all our consciousness were only an accidental epiphenomenon produced by our body. But this is not the case. We are more than just our bodies. We are at very least body and soul.

But neither are we just embodied souls, a consciousness coexisting within a body. We have a body and a soul, but we are more than body and soul. We are part of a larger whole, a transpersonal reality that includes parents, family, society, culture, and the whole worldwide community of other human beings. Our personal spirit links us to a transpersonal spiritual community. It is this transpersonal reality that gives meaning to our lives.

This three-level understanding of who we are is basic to the New Testament. We are not just bodies. Nor are we just bodies and souls. We are body, soul, and spirit. So in the first written book of the New Testament, the Christian apostle Paul sums up his teaching by saying, May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.⁹

The tradition says more. It reminds us that we are more than body, soul, and spirit. We are also children of the holy one, sparks from the fire of divinity, and we have the potential of rediscovering that relationship, of reclaiming our son- and daughter-ship, our relationship with divinity. We are called to be temples of divinity, to live with the holy one within. This process is called theosis or deification, and it is central to the mystical Christian tradition.

Over time our awareness of the four worlds has decreased. The history of the Western world appears to be a story of forgetfulness, a story of forgetting the truth that we live in four worlds. This forgetting begins with forgetting the highest world so that we are aware only of our body, soul, and spirit. This first forgetfulness is due, in part, to the difficulty of talking about the highest world. The third commandment, Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord Thy God in vain, is a reflection of this difficulty and has led the Jewish tradition to avoid speaking directly about God. The Jewish reticence to speak of the holy one is paralleled in the Western Christian tradition by reluctance to talk of deification. A consequence is loss of our awareness of the mystical dimension of our life and of our direct connection with the holy one.

As the forgetfulness continues, we lose our awareness of the spiritual world. We come to see ourselves as body and soul only, mere individuals. The organic connection of me to my neighbor is overlooked, and we see ourselves as separate individuals composed of body and soul, outer and inner parts, forgetting that we are also part of a transpersonal reality.

And then finally, we forget that we have souls and come to see ourselves as merely physical bodies, forgetting or trying to explain away consciousness, meaning, purpose, and all the other phenomena of the higher worlds. The Four World Tradition is an antidote to this reductionist process that forgets and then dismisses the full reality of the four worlds.

The Four Worlds in the Bible

Let us turn now to the source book of our spiritual and mystical tradition, the user’s guide to living in the four worlds—the Bible. Genesis 1 is the beginning of that written tradition. Genesis 1:1 tells us that in the beginning God creates. And what God creates is the heavens and the earth. So for a beginning we have God, the heavens, and the earth. Look at Figure 1-1. What is missing in this figure?

GOD

The Heavens

Earth

Figure 1-1: In the Beginning

It is you who is missing, the observer, consciousness, humankind. And so says Genesis as it continues the story with the creation of Man, male and female, the beginning of the story of humankind, our story. Genesis 2:7 says, The LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. Man is formed by combining God’s breath, a symbol for the spiritual reality of the heavens, with dust from the earth, a symbol for material reality. Thus, man, who was formed from both heaven and earth, is the missing fourth in Figure 1-1 and occupies a place between heaven and earth. The tradition thus presents a spatial representation in Genesis 1 and 2 as shown in Figure 1-2, with God above the heavens and the heavens above earth. Man is placed beneath the heavens, above the earth, between heaven and earth. This fourfold universe is the archetypal background of the religious tradition of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments.

GOD

The Heavens

Man

Earth

Figure 1-2: The Four Worlds of Genesis

God, the Heavens, Man, and Earth

God, the