By Jericho (Z3PTR@ttacs1.ttu.edu) (1 Mar 94)
This tradition began as the remnants of the more traditional Qabalists began to fall away from the Celestial Chorus and the first Babbage computers were invented. Already heavily into numerology, temurah, notarikon, gematria and the Prime-related Ein-Soph that powered the Sephirothic tree, the idea of a computer performing complex mathematical complications, freeing up the mystical side was appealing. Unfortunately, computers stank of the Technocracy. Still, these young Qabalists loved their machines, and a splinter group was founded to study the use of the computer in numerology/probability/divination.
This caused an immediate schism between the Celestial Chorus leadership in Jerusalem, and the traditional qabalists who found the use of computers to be a 'cheapening, watering down effect' of the divine and mystic tradition of Qabala. While the traditionalists were willing to let the Cyber-Qabalists go their own way, the Celestial Choruses feared that they had already betrayed themselves to the technocracy. It became a hotly debated topic: and in the end Cyber Qabala was tentatively added to a list of known Technocracy enemies. This wasn't entirely an inaccurate assumption, either, because the Cyber Qabalists set up secret deals with the Virtual Adepts who had been members of the Technocracy during this period. There were trades of information, equipment, theory. Cyber-Qabalists, finding themselves hunted, decided they had no special love for the traditions. However: the Technocracy wasn't willing to accept such things as divination by numbers, robotic cyber-golems, or the intrinsic melding of science with religion. When Ahaseurus, one of the first Cyber-Qabalists presented his ideas before the Technocracy he was met with the reply "We have no problem with the notion of the divine. We simply don't accept that the divine will be something the sleepers can interact with on their computers. Please revise. "
Cyber Qabalists then went underground. After learning that their old conspirators, the Virtual Adepts, had left the Technocracy, they allowed them themselves to re-surface in Tradition society. They maintain close ties with the Virtual Adepts and the Sons of Ether out of an instinct for self- self-preservation. The Celestial Chorus has reluctantly removed them from their list of technocracy enemies, but maintains a cold distance. Amongst the other traditions, only the Order of Hermes receives them warmly, because of that traditions love of order and language, and because Cyber Qabalists seem to be doing something much more practical with their computers then creating 'virtual worlds'.
Organization: A single chantry is rumored to exist. Nobody knows where. They had to hide for a long time. Most Cyber-Qabalists are solitary and secretive.
Meetings: occasionally Cyber Qabalists will meet on BBs's or use the Virtual Adepts Net. Other meetings occur secretly or at synogogues.
Initiation: Mathematical Prodigies and Computer Programmers who find themselves with an open attitude towards the divine _One_ concept will sometimes be sent anonymous, coded, disks containing some simple programs. When they see what happens when they feed in a textfile of the Koran, Book of Exodus, Tao te Ching and the Bhagavad Gita into a program that mathematically scrambles all of them and puts them back together by mathematical probability into a single work: then they may be approached for tutoring.
Chantry: Unknown.
Acolytes: Mathematicians, rabbis, bbs sysops,bookies.
Sphere: Prime. This is a holdover from the Celestial Chorus days.
Foci: All spheres:computer, Prime/Spirit:religious texts. These could be text files or the actual written material. Forces:holy symbol.
Concepts: College Student, Editor (Foucaults Pendulum!), Mathematical Theorist, Robotics designer, Rabbi, Computer Salesman, Sysop.
Quote:"How can I define the Divine? 3.14. It keeps going and going. Nobody has ever seen the last digit of Pi. Nobody will either. But my computer has shown me what it's like- It's going to be glorious...."