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Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia (Hebrew: אברהם בן שמואל אבולעפיה) was born in Zaragoza, Spain, in 1240, and died sometime after 1291, in Comino, Maltese archipelago.

Abulafia’s life was characterized by ceaseless wandering. His first journey was to the Land of Israel when he was 20 years old. On his return he determined to go to Rome, but stopped short in Capua, where he devoted himself with passionate zeal to the study of philosophy and the Guide for the Perplexed by Maimonides, under the tutelage of the well-known philosopher and physician Hillel ben-Samuel of Verona.

With an eagerness to teach others, he wrote extensively on Kabbalistic, philosophical, and linguistic subjects, succeeding in surrounding himself with numerous students, to whom he imparted much of his enthusiasm.

At the age of thirty-one he returned to Barcelona, where he immersed himself in the study of Sefer Yetzirah ("Book of Creation") and its numerous commentaries. This book explains the creation of the world and man as based on letter combinations. The book, and particularly the commentary and method of the German Jewish mystic Eleazar of Worms, exercised a deep influence upon Abulafia, and greatly increased his mystical tendencies.

Letters of the alphabet, numerals, vowel-points, all became symbols of existence to him. Their combinations and permutations possessed for him an illuminating power most effective in elevating his degree of perception and his ability to explore the riddles of mind, the problems and purpose of human life.

Abulafia soon left Spain again, and in 1279 wrote in Patras, Greece, the first of his prophetic books, Sefer ha-Yashar ("Book of the Upright/Righteous"). Then, in 1280, he went to Rome to meet Pope Nicholas III. The Pope, then in Suriano, issued orders to burn the fanatic as soon as he reached town. The very night Abulafia arrived at Suriano, the Pope suddenly died. Returning to Rome, Abulafia was thrown into prison by the Minorites, but was released after four weeks detention.

He was next heard of in Sicily, where he appeared as a "prophet." The local Jewish congregation in Palermo addressed this issue to Shlomo ben-Aderet, who subsequently wrote a letter against Abulafia. Abulafia had to take up the pilgrim’s staff anew, and under distressing conditions compiled his Sefer ha-Ot ("Book of the Sign") on the little island of Comino, near Malta, 1285–88. In 1291 he wrote his last major meditation manual, Imre Shefer ("Words of Beauty"). Since then, all traces of him are lost.

Abulafia's writings include:

Sefer haYashar ("Book of the Righteous"),
Sefer ha-Ot ("Book of the Sign"),
Hayei Olam HaBa ("Life of the World to Come"),
Or HaSechel ("Light of the Intellect"),
Imre Shefer ("Words of Beauty"),
Get HaShmot,
Gan Na'ul (commentary on Sefer Yetzirah),
Otzar Eden Ganuz (another commentary on Sefer Yetzirah),
Sefer HaCheshek.

Early life and travels

Very early in life he was taken by his parents to Tudela, in Navarre, where his aged father Samuel Abulafia carefully instructed him in the Hebrew Bible and Talmud. When he was eighteen years old his father died, and two years later Abraham began a life of ceaseless wandering. His first journey was to the Land of Israel, whence he intended to start and find the legendary river Sambation and the lost Ten Tribes. He got no further than Akko, however, owing to the desolation and lawlessness in the Holy Land stemming from the chaos following the last Crusades. He then determined to go to Rome, but stopped short in Capua, where he devoted himself with passionate zeal to the study of philosophy and of the Moreh (Guide for the Perplexed) of Maimonides, under the tutelage of a philosopher and physician named Hillel — probably the well-known Hillel ben Samuel ben Eliezer of Verona.

Although he always held Maimonides in the highest estimation, and often made use of sentences from his writings, he was as little satisfied with his philosophy as with any other branch of knowledge which he acquired. He thirsted after the highest. He was of a communicative disposition, able and eager to teach others. He wrote industriously on kabbalistic, philosophical, and grammatical subjects, and succeeded in surrounding himself with numerous pupils, to whom he imparted much of his own enthusiasm. On his return to Spain he became subject to visions, and at the age of thirty-one, at Barcelona, immersed himself in the study of the Sefer Yetzirah and its numerous commentaries. This book, and particularly the commentary and method of the German Jewish mystic, Eleazar of Worms, exercised a deep influence upon him, and had the effect of greatly increasing his mystical bent. Letters of the alphabet, numerals, vowel-points, all became symbols of existence to him, and their combinations and permutations, supplementing and explaining one another, possessed for him an illumining power most effectively to be disclosed in a deeper study of the divine names, and especially of the consonants of the Tetragrammaton. With such auxiliaries, and with the observance of certain rites and ascetic practises, men, he says, may attain to the highest aim of existence and become prophets; not in order to work miracles and signs, but to reach the highest degree of perception and be able to penetrate intuitively into the inscrutable nature of the Deity, the riddles of creation, the problems of human life, the purpose of the precepts, and the deeper meaning of the Torah.

His most important disciple, and one who carried his system further, was the cabalist Joseph Chiquitilla. Abulafia soon left Spain again, and in 1279 wrote at Patras, in Greece, the first of his prophetic books, Sefer ha-Yashar ("Book of the Righteous").

Journey to Rome

In obedience to an inner voice, he went in 1280 to Rome, in order to effect the conversion of Pope Nicholas III on the day before the Jewish New Year, 5041. The pope, then in Suriano, heard of it, and issued orders to "burn the fanatic" as soon as he reached that place. Close to the inner gate the stake was erected in preparation; but not in the least disturbed, Abulafia set out for Suriano and reached there August 22. While passing through the outer gate, he heard that the pope had succumbed to an apoplectic stroke during the preceding night. Returning to Rome, he was thrown into prison by the Minorites, but was liberated after four weeks' detention. He was next heard of in Sicily, where he supposedly appeared as a prophet and Jewish Messiah.

Decline and exile to Comino

This claim was put an end to by a letter to the people of Palermo, which most energetically condemned Abulafia's conduct. It was written by Rabbi Solomon ben Adret, who devoted much of his career to calming the various messianic hysteriae of the day. Abulafia had to take up the pilgrim's staff anew, and under distressing conditions compiled his Sefer ha-Ot ("Book of the Sign") on the little island of Comino, near Malta, between 1285 and 1288. In 1291 he wrote his last, and perhaps his most intelligible, work, Imre Shefer ("Words of Beauty"); after this all trace of him is lost.

Abulafia's Meditation Techniques

In his numerous works Abulafia focuses on complex devices for uniting with the Agent Intellect, or God, through the recitation of divine names, together with breathing techniques and cathartic practices. Some of Abulafia’s mystic ways were adapted from the Ashkenazic Hasidic masters; Abulafia may also have been influenced by Yoga and Sufism. Taking as his framework the metaphysical and psychological system of Moses Maimonides (Mosheh ben Maimon, 1135/8–1204), Abulafia strove for spiritual experience, which he viewed as a prophetic state similar to or even identical with that of the ancient Jewish prophets.

Abulafia suggests a method that is based on a stimulus that continuously changes. His intention is not to relax the consciousness by meditation, but to purify it via a high level of concentration which requires doing many actions at the same time. For this, he uses Hebrew letters.

Abulafia’s method includes three steps.

The first step, preparation: the mystic writes out different letter combinations.

The second step, physiological maneuvers: the mystic chants the letters in conjunction with specific respiratory patterns, as well as head positioning.

The third step, mental imagery of letters and human forms: the mystic imagines a human form, and himself without a body. Then the mystic ‘draws’ the letters mentally, projects them onto the ‘screen’ of the ‘imaginative faculty’, i.e. he mentally imagines the patterns of letters. He then rotates the letters and turns them, as Abulafia describes in Imrei Shefer: "And they [the letters], with their forms, are called the Clear Mirror, for all the forms having brightness and strong radiance are included in them. And one who gazes at them in their forms will discover their secrets and speak of them, and they will speak to him. And they are like an image in which a man sees all his forms standing in front of him, and then he will be able to see all the general and specific things (Ms. Paris BN 777, fol. 49)."

During the final step of mental imagery, the mystic passes a succession of four experiences. The first is an experience of body-photism or illumination, in which light not only surrounds the body but also diffuses into it, giving impression that the body and its organs have become light. As the ecstatic Kabbalist continues to practice, combining letters and performing physiological maneuvers, the result is the second experience: weakening of the body, in an ‘absorptive’ manner. Subsequently, the mystic may feel an enhancement of his thoughts and imaginative capacity. This is the third experience. The fourth experience is characterized mainly by fear and trembling.

Abulafia emphasizes that trembling is a basic and necessary step to obtain prophecy (Sitrei Torah, Paris Ms. 774, fol. 158a). In another place he writes: ‘all your body will begin to tremble, and your limbs begin to shake, and you will fear a tremendous fear […] and the body will tremble, like the rider who races the horse, who is glad and joyful, while the horse trembles beneath him’ (Otzar Eden Ganuz, Oxford Ms. 1580, fols. 163b-164a; see also Hayei Haolam Haba, Oxford 1582, fol. 12a).

For Abulafia the fear is followed by an experience of pleasure and delight. This feeling is a result of sensing another ‘spirit’ within his body, as he describes in Otzar Eden Ganuz: ‘And you shall feel another spirit awakening within yourself and strengthening you and passing over your entire body and giving you pleasure’ (Oxford Ms. 1580 fols. 163b-164a).

Only after passing these successive experiences does the mystic reach his goal: the vision of a human form, which is closely linked to his own physical appearance and generally experienced as standing in front of the mystic. The experience is increased when the mystic experiences his autoscopic form (or ‘double’) as speaking: the double begins to talk to the mystic, teaching him the unknown and revealing the future.

Abraham Abulafia describes the experience of seeing a human ‘form’ many times in his writings. However, initially it is not clear who this ‘form’ is. As the dialog between the mystic and the ‘form’ proceeds, the reader understands that the ‘form’ is the image of the mystic himself. Addressing his students and followers in Sefer Hakheshek, Abulafia further elaborates the scenario (New York Ms. JTS 1801, fol. 9a; British Library Ms. 749, fols. 12a-12b): "… and sit as though a man is standing before you and waiting for you to speak with him; and he is ready to answer you concerning whatever you may ask him, and you say ‘speak’ and he answers […] and begin then to pronounce [the name] and recite first ‘the head of the head’ [i.e. the first combination of letters], drawing out the breath and at great ease; and afterwards go back as if the one standing opposite you is answering you; and you yourself answer, changing your voice …" Apparently, by utilizing the letters of ‘the Name’ with specific breath techniques, a human form should appear. Only in the last sentence Abulafia suggests that this form is ‘yourself’.

Yet he explicitly put it, as he has also explained in another book, Sefer Hayei Haolam Haba: ‘And consider his reply, answering as though you yourself had answered yourself’ (Oxford Ms. 1582, fol. 56b). Most of Abulafia’s descriptions are written in a similar fashion. In Sefer Haoth Abulafia describes a similar episode, but from an explicit self-perspective:"I saw a man coming from the west with a great army, the number of the warriors of his camp being twenty-two thousand men […] And when I saw his face in the sight, I was astonished, and my heart trembled within me, and I left my place and I longed for it to call upon the name of God to help me, but that thing evaded my spirit. And when the man has seen my great fear and my strong awe, he opened his mouth and he spoke, and he opened my mouth to speak, and I answered him according to his words, and in my words I became another man (pp. 81–2)."

Influence

Abulafia's subterranean influence is evident in the large number of manuscripts of his major meditation manuals that flourished down to the present day until all his works were finally published in Mea Shearin in Jerusalem during the 1990s

Abulafia’s prophetic and messianic pretensions prompted a sharp reaction on the part of Shelomoh ben Avraham Adret, a famous legal authority who succeeded in annihilating the influence of Abulafia’s ecstatic Qabbalah in Spain.

In Italy, however, his works were translated into Latin and contributed substantially to the formation of Christian Qabbalah.

In the Middle East, ecstatic Qabbalah was accepted without reservation. Clear traces of Abulafian doctrine are evident in the works of Yitshaq ben Shemuel of Acre and Yehudah Albotini. In Israel, Abulafia’s ideas were combined with Sufi elements, apparently stemming from the school of Ibn Arabi; thus Sufi views were introduced into European Qabbalah.

After the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, Spanish theurgical Qabbalah, which had developed without any significant impact from ecstatic Qabbalah, was integrated with the latter; this combination became, through the book Pardes Rimmonim by Mosheh Cordovero, part of mainstream Qabbalah. Hayyim Vital brought Abulafian views into the fourth unpublished part of his Shaarei Qedushah, and the eighteenth-century qabbalists of the Beit El Academy in Jerusalem perused Abulafia’s mystical manuals. Later on, mystical and psychological conceptions of Qabbalah found their way directly and indirectly to the Polish Hasidic masters. The influence of ecstatic Qabbalah is to be seen in isolated groups today, and traces of it can be found in modern literature (e.g., the poetry of Yvan Goll), mainly since the publication of Gershom Scholem’s researches.

The name "Abulafia" in popular culture

Abulafia is the nickname given by deuteragonist Jacopo Belbo to his home computer in Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum. The machine was used not only for word processing, but also to attempt to extract meaningful snippets from random permutations of text in a fashion reminiscent of Abraham Abulafia's methods.
Paul Durham uses the word Abulafia as the escape code to call up a terminal in his virtual reality simulations in Greg Egan's Permutation City. This is again a reference to the permutation process, though it is unclear whether it is intended as an homage to the machine in Eco's work or to Abraham Abulafia himself.
The young speller Eliza Naumann is introduced to the work of Abulafia by her father in the novel Bee Season by Myla Goldberg, and the film adaptation (2005) directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel.

Bibliography

Idel, Moshe "Abraham Abulafia: An Ecstatic Kabbalist [Two Studies]" (Labyrinthos, 1992)

References

JewishEncyclopedia.com article
Portrait of Abulafia (PDF file)
English translation of Abraham Abulafia's major meditation manual אור השכל 'Light of the Intellect'
"Circles" - from Life of the World to Come
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

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