Abraham Abulafia’s Prophetic Kabbalah

Record summary

Abraham Abulafia developed a prophetic or ecstatic Kabbalah using combinations of Hebrew letters, divine names, breathing, chanting and contemplative visualization. His manuals and autobiographical material describe visionary and revelatory states, while Sefer ha-Ot presents a symbolic prophetic narrative. This tradition matters for cross-cultural comparison of structured meditation, self-transformation and perceived revelation. The sources are medieval religious texts with complex manuscript transmission, and modern physiological or paranormal interpretations go beyond what the historical evidence can establish.