Best Beginners book about Kabbalah?

[Desecrated]

Dion fortune - mystical qabalah ?
Aleister Crowley - 777 ?
Or something by Michael Laitman ?

Personally I like Aryeh Kaplan, but I don't know if that's the best books to start with.
What is your choice?

[Cybernetic_Jazz]

Having read Kaplin and Fortune they're both good - just that Fortune's book was clearly much more of a 'This is the map' whereas Kaplin's was much more geared in the practical direction. Something by Regardie also, like Tree of Life, might be a good offering as well.

I'm also wondering about William Gray's The Ladder of Lights or some of his other Kabbalah works (which he has several). Reading his Magic Ritual Methods I'm very impressed by just how clear cut and forward his work was and, while I haven't had the opportunity to read his more directly Kabbalah-related stuff, I'd think it has to be quite strong. If anyone else can vouch for it it might be worth adding.

Also, perhaps to put a shameless plug in for one of my favorite current authors here in the US, Kabbalah for Health and Wellness might be a good one to add.

[Desecrated]

Shameless plugs are always welcomed.

Lets see if anyone else have something to add.

[CCoburn]

All of the correspondences in the Mystical Qabalah come from Liber 777,
so those two are like Bacon and Eggs.

Beginners books indeed. They provide everything for constructing Rituals,
with the exception of telling you exactly how to do it.

Crowley is a bit harder to understand at first, but realizations do come about
with time. He prides himself on being an intellectual, and feels that if a person is totally lost
with his words, than Magick is not for them, and I agree. I do like Crowley, even more now.

Peace.

[corvidus]

I think the best beginners book is the Sephir Yetzirah.

Why? Because I still use it, and every time I've read it (even the first time) I get something different from it.

[CCoburn]

Yeah, the Mystical Qabalah also uses a quote from the Yetziratic Texts for each Sephirah,
listed along with the correspondences which came from Liber 777, as stated above.

The quotes are not exactly straightforward, and do require a bit of thought, some of them
are even a bit ambiguous, which is ok I guess. Leaving a degree of interpretation by the reader.

As I recall.

[Desecrated]

I think the best beginners book is the Sephir Yetzirah.

Why? Because I still use it, and every time I've read it (even the first time) I get something different from it.

The problem with the Yetzirah is that: it's only recently that we've gotten an accurate translation of the whole text.
The version translated by Westcott and that was used within the Golden Dawn is horrible inaccurate and incomplete.
The one that is uploaded on sacred texts.com is 20 pages. But the whole text is over 300. With the commentary it's 398 pages.
And it's really not a beginners book either.