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.

This book explores the career of Abraham Abulafia (ca. 1240–1291), self-proclaimed Messiah and founder of the school of ecstatic Kabbalah. Active in southern Italy and Sicily where Franciscans had adopted the apocalyptic teachings of Joachim of Fiore, Abulafia believed the end of days was approaching and saw himself as chosen by God to reveal the Divine truth. He appropriated Joachite ideas, fusing them with his own revelations, to create an apocalyptic and messianic scenario that he was certain would attract his Jewish contemporaries and hoped would also convince Christians. From his focus on the centrality of the Tetragrammaton (the four letter ineffable Divine name) to the date of the expected redemption in 1290 and the coming together of Jews and Gentiles in the inclusiveness of the new age, Abulafia's engagement with the apocalyptic teachings of some of his Franciscan contemporaries enriched his own worldview. Though his messianic claims were a result of his revelatory experiences and hermeneutical reading of the Torah, they were, to no small extent, dependent on his historical circumstances and acculturation.

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.

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.

This is one of the rare autobiographic books in Kabbalah. Abulafia relates his experiences and visions, some of which are really frightening. Most notable are his encounters with angels.

Representing a careful contextual study of the writings of the influential Jewish mystic Abraham Abulafia (1240 – c. 1291), this book demonstrates that an inner dynamic of attraction and revulsion toward Christianity shaped Abulafia’s mystical hermeneutic and meditative practice.