Ecstatic Kabbalah as an Experiential Lore
Yale University Press eBooks May 17, 2011 DOI: 10.12987/yale/9780300126266.003.0005 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Historical analysis Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that modern scholarship marginalized Abulafia's ecstatic Kabbalah after the mid-1950s, despite Scholem's characterization of it as a major trend, because scholars increasingly treated Kabbalah as a speculative theological system rather than a mysticism and favored theosophical-theurgical Kabbalah. |
Abstract
This chapter describes how some modern scholars have focused their attention on theosophical-theurgical Kabbalah, a preeminently Spanish type of Kabbalah, and how they have pointed out the “casuistical” nature of Kabbalah as a whole. Part of this evaluation has to do with the marginalization of Abulafia's Kabbalah in the scholarship after the mid-1950s, despite Gershom Scholem's characterization of ecstatic Kabbalah as a major trend. This marginalization is part of a larger phenomenon that can be described as a more theological approach to Kabbalah, which was conceived of more as a speculative system than as a full-fledged form of mysticism. This trend especially affected the writings of Abulafia, some of which were dedicated to describing mystical techniques.