cabalas and conspiratorial dictionaries

[JULIUS RAPER]

	Is there a conspiracy afoot to conceal the possible Greek source
of "cabala" in the Greek "kabbale," which my Greek dictionary defines as
3rd person singular aorist of "kataballo," "to throw down, to overthrow,
to bring down, to strike down, to cast away, to throw down or sow, to lay
down as a foundation" and several other related definitions. 
	 No wonder many cultures and institutions feared something
subversive afoot when cabalas were mentioned, though the reference may be
to the cabalistic cosmogony associated with the gnostics: that our world
was a late emanation from the original benevolent godhead, a world created
(sown, thrown down) by a minor, none too benevolent demiurge, a dungeon-
or prison-world cast down so far that only by liberating the spark of
gnosis or wisdom within each of us, our remnant from that original
godhead, can we perceive our true state and reunite with our origins.  We
are akin to Sophia, carrier of the spark, born in a brothel (in Tyre, I
believe)--but through love of Sophia (philo/sophia--or is it philos/ophia,
love Ophis, the serpent?) we can augment the spark of gnosis.  This, of
course, is the playing field Durrell locates both his Quartet and Quintet
upon, and it is a green one, given the way the gnostic cabala has been
viewed as heresy (perhaps for good reasons) in European cultures. 
	But why would the dictionaries want to hide these possibilities?
				JRR