The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia

262 Pages·1988·17.93 MB·English

by  Moshe Idel

The Mystical Experience in
Abraham Abulafia
SUNY Series in Judaica: Hermeneutics, Mysticism, and
Religion
Michael Fishbane, Robert Goldenberg, and Arthur Green,
Editors
The Mystical Experience
in Abraham Abulafia
Moshe Idel
Translated from the Hebrew
by Jonathan Chipman
State University of New York Press
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Judaica series was used with permission
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Published by
State University of New York Press, Albany
@ 1988 State University of New York
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Idel, Moshe, 1947-
The mystical experience in Abraham Abulafia.
(SUNY series in Judaica)
Bibliography: p. 23
Includes index.
l.Abulafia, Abraham ben Samuel, 1240-ca. 1292
2. Cabala-History. 3. Ecstasy ijudaism) I. Title.
ll. Series.
BM526.1341987 296.7'1 87-1869
ISBN 0-88706-552-X
ISBN 0-88706-553-8 (pbk.)
CONTENTS
Foreword by Shlomo Pines vii
Acknowledgments ix
Journal Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
Chapter 1. Techniques for Attaining Ecstasy 13
Chapter 2. Music and Ecstatic Kabbalah 55
Chapter 3. The Mystical Experience 73
Chapter 4. Erotic Images for the Ecstatic Experience 179
Bibliography 229
Index of Subjects and Proper Names 233
Index of Titles 241

Foreword
Shlomo Pines
A
s is understood by the thirteenth century mystic Abraham
.l'"'\:Abulafia, Kabbalah is not primarily a form of gnosis or
theosophy. In effect, his view has nothing in common with the
Sephirotic Kabbalah, whose object is the penetration of the structure
of Divine being and the processes occurring therein. With the help
of his profound erudition, Moshe Idel has devoted patient and
exhaustive study to the analysis of the extant material from the
voluminous Abulafian corpus. He concludes that the mystical
technique, experiences and doctrines of this author are focused upon
the human being and his upward progress along the path leading to
prophetic-mystical ecstasy.
This description leaves the reader with a clear sense of the
disparity among the elements composing the corpus in question. Idel
begins by discussing the senses of sight and hearing of the mystic in
a state of ecstasy and the techniques enabling him to reach this state.
He observes that the processes spoken of here which have parallels
in Yoga (i.e., in its breathing exercises) and in Greek hesychasm:
namely, the peculiar importance given to the pronunciation of Divine
Names. All of these have no bearing upon the theoretical basis of
Abulafia's thought, a structure which, at least in terms of its
terminology, betrays philosophical influence.
There is no doubt that it was a powerful mystical impulse which
led Abulafia as commentator of the Guide of the Perplexed to declare
in the same work that a certain technique, consisting of the
permutation of Hebrew letters composing certain words, is far
superior to the cognitive path recommended by the philosophers as
a means of apprehending and cleaving to the Active Intellect (i.e., the
supreme goal of the Aristotelians). The cognition spoken about by
Abulafia is one which is easily obscured by the imagination.
Essentially, both Maimonides and, even more emphatically,
Abulafia, understand the imagination as opposed to the intellect.
On the other hand, Abulafia's attitude to the imagination, like that
of Maimonides, entails a certain unacknowledged ambivalence. It is
inconceivable that Abulafia thought, in contradistinction to Maimo
nides, that the imagination played no role whatsoever in the visual
and aural experience of the prophets, an experience which he
understood as one of mystical ecstasy. While Maimonides states that
all the prophets are philosophers, and Avicenna, in the last work
written before his death, articulates his belief that the prophets are
mystics, Abulafia inverts Avicenna's statement: all the true mystics
are, in his opinion, prophets. From this, the inevitable conclusion is
that he himself was a prophet.