The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia

by Moshe Idel

This book represents the first wide-scale presentation of a major Jewish mystic, the founder of the ecstatic Kabbalah. It includes a description of the techniques employed by his master, including the role of music. There is a discussion of the characteristics of his mystical experience and the erotic imagery by which it was expressed. Based on all the extant manuscript material of Abulafia, this book opens the way to a new understanding of Jewish mysticism. It points to the importance of the ecstatic Kabbalah for the later developments in mystical Judaism.

Genres: Judaism, Esoterica, Philosophy

260 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1987

Reviews

[Jeroen Kuiper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing scholarship on the strange 13th century thinker, Kabbalist, mystic Abraham Abulafia. This book focuses on a presentation and analysis of his many works (apparently most of them unpublished), and not really his (rather unusual) biography.

The most fascination thing for me is to notice how Aristotelian Abulafia's mysticism is: the union of God as the active intellect with the human (passive/potential) intellect, directly based on Aristotle's De anima - while nobody would think of Aristotle himself as a mystic. And how weird that this intellectualism is combined with detailed descriptions of his complicated meditation techniques.

How it is possible that this led him to this mad scheme of going to the pope in Rome in an effort to convert him to Judaism?

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely incredible. this guy was a shitkicker.