The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia

Author: Moshe Idel

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2012-02-01

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 1438407459

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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.

Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah
Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah

Author: Moshe Idel

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2012-02-01

Total Pages: 195

ISBN-13: 1438407467

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This book presents important topics regarding the more mystical trend of Kabbalah—the ecstatic Kabbalah. It includes the mystical union, the world of imagination, and concentration as a spiritual technique. The emphasis in the text is on the interaction between the "original" Spanish stage of Kabbalah and Muslim mysticism in the East, mainly in the Galilee. The influence of the Kabbalistic-Sufic synthesis on the later developments of Jewish mysticism is traced, thereby providing a more precise understanding of the history of Kabbalah as an interplay between the theosophical and ecstatic mystical experiences.

The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia
The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia

Author: Moshe Idel

Publisher: Suny Press

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13:

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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.

Messianic Mystics
Messianic Mystics

Author: Moshe Idel

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2000-05-01

Total Pages: 470

ISBN-13: 9780300082883

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One of the worl'ds leading scholars of Jewish thought examines the long tradition of Jewish messianism and mystical experience.

Kabbalah
Kabbalah

Author: Moshe Idel

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 1988-01-01

Total Pages: 444

ISBN-13: 9780300046991

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In this prizewinning new interpretation of Jewish mysticism, Moshe Idel emphasizes the need for a comparative and phenomenological approach to Kabbalah and its position in the history of religion. Idel provides fresh insights into the origins of Jewish mysticism, the relation between mystical and historical experience, and the impact of Jewish mysticism on western civilization. "Idel's book is studded with major insights, and innovative approaches to the entire history of Judaism, and mastery of it will be essential for all serious students of Jewish thought."--Arthur Green, New York Times Book Review "Moshe Idel's original, scholarly, and stimulating study of Kabbalah contains the promise of a masterwork."--Elie Wiesel "Moshe Idel's book can help the nonspecialized reader to reconsider the whole of Kabbalistic tradition in comparison with many aspects of contemporary thought."--Umberto Eco "There can be no dispute about the importance and originality of Idel's work. Offering a wealth of complementary insights to Gershom Scholem and his school, it will command a great deal of attention and serious discussion."--Alexander Altmann

Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abraham Abulafia
Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abraham Abulafia

Author: Moshe Idel

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 1988-12-20

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 9780887068324

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Abraham Abulafia, the founder of the ecstatic Kabbalah, exposed a mysticism that includes a deep interest in language as a universe in itself, to be studied as the philosophers study nature, in order to attain higher knowledge than natural science and speculative philosophy. The status of Hebrew as the natural, intellectual, and primordial language is discussed against the background of the medieval speculations regarding this topic.

“And They Shall Be One Flesh”: On The Language of Mystical Union in Judaism
“And They Shall Be One Flesh”: On The Language of Mystical Union in Judaism

Author: Adam Afterman

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2016-08-29

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 9004328734

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In “And They Shall Be One Flesh”: On the Language of Mystical Union in Judaism, Adam Afterman offers an extensive study of mystical union and embodiment in Judaism. Afterman argues that Philo was the first to articulate the notion of unio mystica in Judaism and is the source of the henōsis mysticism in the later Neoplatonic tradition. The study provides a detailed analysis of the Jewish medieval trends that developed different forms of mystical union and mystical embodiment through the divine name and spirit. The book argues that the development of unitive mysticism in Judaism is the fruit of the creative synthesis of rabbinic Judaism and Hellenistic and Arab philosophy, and a natural outcome of the theological articulation of the idea of monotheism itself.

Kabbalah
Kabbalah

Author: Shahar Arzy

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2015-01-01

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 0300152361

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"In this original study, Moshe Idel, an eminent scholar of Jewish mysticism and thought, and the cognitive neuroscientist and neurologist Shahar Arzy combine their considerable expertise to explore the mysteries of the Kabbalah from an entirely new perspective: that of the human brain. In lieu of the theological, sociological, and psychoanalytic approaches that have generally dominated the study of ecstatic mystical experiences, the authors endeavor to decode the brain mechanisms underlying these phenomena. Arzy and Idel analyze first-person descriptions to explore the Kabbalistic techniques employed by most prominent Jewish mystics to effect bodily reduplications, dissociations, and other phenomena, and compare them with recent neurological observationsand modern-day laboratory experiments. The resultant study offers readers a scientific, more brain-based understanding of how ecstatic Kabbalists achieved their most precious mystical experiences. The study further demonstrates how these Kabbalists have long functioned as pioneering investigators of the human self"--