קַבָּלָה means 'receiving', 'reception', and 'tradition' in Hebrew. It also refers to the Qabalah: a mystical philosophy that has its roots in Late Antiquity, with the dawn of Neoplatonism and Jewish gnosticism and the writing of the Sepher Yetzirah or 'Book of Formation'; but which did not grow into a tradition of its own, separate from Hekhalot and Merkava mysticism, until around the 12th or 13th century.

During the Renaissance Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, writing only a few decades after Marsilio Ficino completed his translation of the Corpus Hermeticum, became intensely interested in Qabalah, and quite industriously proceeded to Christianise it. In the heavily syncretic context of Renaissance humanism, this Christianised Qabalah mixed extraordinarily well with Hermeticism (which itself drew from Neoplatonic roots), and the two were quickly fused together. There are thus two major traditions of Qabalah in the modern day: the Rabbinic, which remained ensconced firmly within the Jewish religious tradition; and the Hermetic, which incorporated elements from Christianity and farther afield.

Whilst I list only a few spellings above, there are in fact numerous variant spellings of this particular term; more so, perhaps, than any other term to be found in the world of Hermeticism or indeed in Western esotericism generally. I have listed the three major spellings in this entry, and as is noted the spelling generally conveys information about which particular Qabalistic strand is being referenced. 'Qabalah' is characteristically Hermetic, and is almost never encountered in the context of the Rabbinic variety. Cabala is the Latin spelling, and refers generally to the Christian/Hermetic variety spawned during the Renaissance. It is this spelling which is used by Renaissance authors such as Pico and Agrippa, and occasionally by authors in the 19th century occult renaissance (e.g. Francis Barrett, who drew largely from Agrippa's work in writing The Magus). Kabbalah frequently refers to the Rabbinic tradition, but this is not universally the case.

In part, this peculiarly large number of variant spellings is due to the lack of a single standard of transliteration from Hebrew to Roman characters. Generally, these variant spellings are quite similar to one of the three I list above--the differences seem to be largely a matter of whether an individual uses one 'b' or 'l', or whether he uses two. While certain spellings may be less common than others, none are necessarily incorrect--with one notable exception. The spelling 'Quabbalah', or any other variant spelling involving a 'qu', is an unequivocally misinformed one. There is neither a vav nor a 'kw' sound to be found in the word; rather, this misspelling is attributable to an unfortunate desire to treat Hebrew transliteration as English, in which there is no 'q' found in the language except followed by a 'u'. Understandably, however, this convention is not applicable to Hebrew transliteration, and such spellings are to be considered at best deprecated.