 It is therefore important to bear in mind when discussing things such as the "sephirot" and their interactions that one is dealing with highly abstract concepts that at best can only be understood intuitively.From the Renaissance onwards Jewish Kabbalah texts entered non-Jewish culture, where they were studied and translated by Christian Hebraists and Hermetic occultists.The syncretic traditions of Christian Cabala and Hermetic Qabalah developed independently of Judaic Kabbalah, reading the Jewish texts as universalist ancient wisdom preserved from the Gnostic traditions of antiquity.