Kabbalah (Hebrew: קַבָּלָה, Tiberian: qabːɔˈlɔh, Qabbālāh, Israeli: Kabala) literally means "receiving", and is sometimes transliterated as Cabala, Kabbala, Qabalah, or other
spellings. It is held authoritative by most Orthodox Jews. According to its adherents, intimate understanding and mastery of the Kabbalah brings man spiritually closer to God and as a result humanity can be empowered with higher insight into the inner-workings of God’s creation.Kabbalistic knowledge was transmitted orally by, the Jewish Patriarchs, prophets, and sages (Avot in Hebrew), eventually to be “interwoven” into Jewish religious writings and culture.
 
According to this tradition, Kabbalah was, in around the 10th century BCE, an open knowledge practiced by over a million people in ancient Israel , although there is little objective historical evidence to support this thesis.Foreign conquests drove the Jewish spiritual leadership of the time (the Sanhedrin) to hide the knowledge and make it secret, fearing that it might be misused if it fell into the wrong hands.Originally, Kabbalistic knowledge was believed to be an integral part of the Judaism's oral law (see also, Aggadah), given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai around 13th century BCE, though there is a view that Kabbalah began with Adam.

During the C5th BC, when the works of the Tanakh were edited and canonized and the secret knowledge encrypted within the various writings and scrolls (“MeGilot”), the knowledge was referred to as Ma'aseh Merkavah (Hebrew: מעשה מרכבה)[1] and Ma'aseh B'reshit (Hebrew: מעשה בראשית)[2]., respectively "the act of the Chariot" and "the act of Creation". Merkavah mysticism alluded to the encrypted knowledge within the book of the prophet Ezekiel describing his vision of the "Divine Chariot". B'reshit mysticism referred to the first chapter of Genesis (Hebrew: בראשית) in the Torah that is believed to contain secrets of the creation of the universe and forces of nature. These terms are also mentioned in the second chapter of the Talmudic tractate Haggigah.

According to adherents of Kabbalah, its origin begins with secrets that God revealed to Adam. According to a rabbinic midrash God created the universe through the ten sefirot. When read by later generations of Kabbalists, the Torah's description of the creation in the Book of Genesis reveals mysteries about the godhead itself, the true nature
of Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life, as well as the interaction of these supernal entities with the Serpent which leads to disaster when they eat the forbidden fruit, as recorded in Genesis.

 
Ten Sefirot and physical sciences

Notable is the similarity between the concept in Kabbalah that the physical universe is made of Divine Light, and the modern concept in Physics that it is made of energy.

Moreover in Kabbalah, Divine Light is the carrier of consciousness.

"The human soul is a part of the Creator [that is, Divine Light]. Therefore, there is no difference between Him and the soul. The difference is that He is the 'whole' and the soul is a 'part'. This resembles a stone carved from a rock. There is no difference between the stone and the rock except that the rock is a 'whole' and the stone is a 'part'". (Yhuda Ashlag, Introduction in Ha-Sulam.)

Thus, a humans consciousness is a part of the Divine Consciousness, where the rest of the infinite Divine has been hidden from the human. This kabbalistic concept that consciousness is an aspect of Divine Light is similar to the protoscientific hypothesis that the electromagnetic field generated by the brain is the carrier of consciousness. In other words, consciousness would be an aspect of light (electromagnetic radiation) and not an aspect of the physical brain per se.