Abraham Abulafia's Esotericism: Secrets and Doubt

This book focuses on Abraham Abulafia's esoteric thought in relation to Maimonides, Maimonideans, and Islamic thought in the line of Leo Strauss' theory of the history of philosophy. A survey of Abulafia's sources leads into an analysis of the esoteric meaning on the famous parable of the three rings, considering also the possible connection between this parable, which Abdulafia inserted into a book dedicated to his student, the 13th century rabbi Nathan the wise, and the Lessing's Play Nathan the Wise. The book also examines Abulafia's universalistic understanding of the nature of the Bible, the Hebrew language, and the people of Israel (or the Sinaic revelation). The universal aspects of Abulafia’s thought have been put in relief against the more widespread Kabbalistic views which are predominantly particularistic. A number of texts have also been identified here for the first time as authored by Abulafia

Dignitates and Kavod:

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Why revelations have occurred on mountains? Linking mystical experiences and cognitive neuroscience

The fundamental revelations to the founders of the three monotheistic religions, among many other revelation experiences, had occurred on a mountain. These three revelation experiences share many phenomenological components like feeling and hearing a presence, seeing a figure, seeing lights, and feeling of fear. In addition, similar experiences have been reported by non-mystic contemporary mountaineers. The similarities between these revelations on mountains and their appearance in contemporary mountaineers suggest that exposure to altitude might affect functional and neural mechanisms, thus facilitating the experience of a revelation. Different functions relying on brain areas such as the temporo-parietal junction and the prefrontal cortex have been suggested to be altered in altitude. Moreover, acute and chronic hypoxia significantly affect the temporo-parietal junction and the prefrontal cortex and both areas have also been linked to altered own body perceptions and mystical experiences. Prolonged stay at high altitudes, especially in social deprivation, may also lead to prefrontal lobe dysfunctions such as low resistance to stress and loss of inhibition. Based on these phenomenological, functional, and neural findings we suggest that exposure to altitudes might contribute to the induction of revelation experiences and might further our understanding of the mountain metaphor in religion. Mystical and religious experiences are important not only to the mystic himself, but also to many followers, as it was indeed with respect to the leaders of the three monotheistic religions. Yet, concerning its subjective character, mystical experiences are almost never accessible to the scholars interested in examining them. The tools of cognitive neuroscience make it possible to approach religious and mystical experiences not only by the semantical analysis of texts, but also by approaching similar experiences in healthy subjects during prolonged stays at high altitude and/or in cognitive paradigms. Cognitive neurosciences, in turn, might profit from the research of mysticism in their endeavor to further our understanding of mechanisms of corporeal awareness and self consciousness

Speaking with one's self - Autoscopic phenomena in writings from the ecstatic Kabbalah

Immediate experience localizes the self within the limits of the physical body. This spatial unity has been challenged by philosophical and mystical traditions aimed to isolate concepts of mind and body. A more direct challenge of the spatial unity comes from a well-defined group of experiences called 'autoscopic phenomena' (AP), in which the subject has the impression of seeing a second own body in an extrapersonal space. AP are known to occur in many human cultures and have been described in healthy, as well as neurological and psychiatric populations. In this article we investigate the phenomenology of AP as described in the writings of the ecstatic Kabbalah of the thirteenth century, and search for similarities and differences with respect to AP from these and other populations. The article discusses potential common research areas between cognitive science and the science of religious experience

Abraham Abulafia's Mystical Theology of the Divine Name and its Philosophical Revision in Walter Benjamin

The thirteenth century kabbalist Abraham Abulafia held Hebrew to be the divine language, designed by God as an ontological aspect of reality. Through meditating on and deconstructing names into their letters, one could then engage in the process of reunifying reality into the primordial Name of God, the Tetragrammaton. This paper offers an original analysis, aligning Abulafia with Walter Benjamin's writings on language wherein the world speaks itself phenomenally to human beings, who must take an active role in translating this silent speech. Here the human, as name-giver, is finalizer of reality; by translating base phenomena into named entities humanity elevates them into a new realm, beyond the merely real into the true. This epistemic-soteriological theory speaks to common speculative questions about language and the world, offering a new way of understanding how human beings can come to know the world as-it-is, and as-it-should-be; a way that is philosophical, yet based firmly in Medieval Jewish theology

A la recherche de la langue originelle : le témoignage du nourrisson

In search of the Original Language : the Infant Ordeal This study discusses the emergence of the mediaeval view of Hebrew as the first and perfect language. The most articulated versions of this theory emerged in the context of a polemic with the Muslim claim of superiority of the Arabic language. One of the "loci probantes" for this claim is a story stemming from Herodot on an experiment done with an infant in order to discover the original language. While most of the Kabbalists believed that the infant spoke Hebrew, Abraham Abulafia rejected this view. Most of the discussions on this experiment come from Italian authors or from authors who have written in Italy. The Jewish authors were more interested in the superiority of Hebrew, while the Christian thinkers were more concerned with the concept of the perfect language.Cet article traite de l'émergence de la conception médiévale qui voit dans l'hébreu la langue primordiale et parfaite. Elle vit le jour dans le cadre de la polémique dirigée contre les Musulmans qui proclamaient la supériorité de la langue arabe. Les uns et les autres se référaient à Hérodote qui raconte une expérience menée sur de jeunes enfants pour retrouver la langue originelle. Contrairement à la plupart des kabbalistes, Abulafia ne pensait pas que ces enfants aient parlé hébreu. La majeure partie des discussions consacrées à cette expérience émane d'auteurs italiens ou ayant écrit en Italie. Les auteurs juifs s'intéressaient davantage à la supériorité de l'hébreu, alors que les penseurs chrétiens étaient plus préoccupés par le concept de langue parfaite.Idel Moshe. A la recherche de la langue originelle : le témoignage du nourrisson. In: Revue de l'histoire des religions, tome 213, n°4, 1996. Langue et Kabbale. pp. 415-442

Pardes: Between Sefirot and Demonology

Mysticism in Judais