Abraham Abulafia - Abulafia's Meditation Techniques

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 by the Ashkenazic Hasidic masters. 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 a number of steps.

• The first step, preparation: the initiate purifies himself through fasting, the wearing of phylacteries, and donning pure white garments.
• The second step: the mystic writes out specific letter groups and their permutations.
• The third step, physiological maneuvers: the mystic chants the letters in conjunction with specific respiratory patterns, as well as head positioning.
• The fourth 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, 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 to 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 and recite first ‘the head of the head’, 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 had 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)."