Thanks for the response.

Zohar is medieval, but is probably not the origin of Kabbalah. It's hard to say anything with certainty, given that anything (everything?) earlier is said to be oral tradition. I assume, however, that there must have been antecedents.

I don't know if you've been following my series on Jung, especially the articles on his relationship to Hinduism and Buddhism, but what you say about the goals and philosophies reminds me of what I was saying there. The aims of Gnosticism seem to be similar to Buddhism, and Kabbalah closer to Jung. I wonder if such apparent differences can be reconciled.

It will take me quite a while to get through all those links.