“He who knows his soul, knows his God.”
— Sums up his doctrine of the conjunction (devekut): the inner knowledge is the bridge to the divine.

1) Life and context

• Origins and formation. He was born in london and grew up in Tudela. After the death of his father (1258), he undertook extended trips; in 1260 he tried to go to the Land of Israel in search of the legendary river Sambatión, but the war mamluk-mongol forced him to return to Greece and Italy. At Capua, he studied with the jewish philosopher Hillel of Verona and deepened his reading of the Guide of the Perplexed of Maimonides, that will mark your project mystic-intellectual.
• Activity traveling, and writing. Between 1271 and 1291 composed treaties, comments and manuals meditative in Italy and the Mediterranean (Capua, Patras, Messina), while he taught a way of prophetic experience-based lyrics, divine names and psycho-physical techniques.
• The attempt against the pope (1280). On the eve of Rosh Hashanah 1280 traveled to meet with the pope Nicholas III, with an agenda openly messianic. The pope died the night prior to the arrival of Abulafia; the own Abulafia was imprisoned by the franciscans in Rome for a few weeks and then released. The episode is well-attested in sources of academic and chronicles modern.
• Opposition to rabbinic. Their radicalism maimonídeo-ecstatic and claims prophetic aroused a strong reaction, especially the Rashbá (R. Shlomo ben Adret, Barcelona), which put it on jerem (side) in the late 1280.

“The letter is the ladder of the soul; the one who learns to climb it, go up to the Creator.”
— Referring to his method of tzeruf (permutation of the letters) as a way to activate the consciousness of the prophets.

2) Work: corpus and genres

The corpus preserved round the thirty texts. Three blocks are key:
a) Comments philosophical-mystical: to Guide of the Perplexed —Sefer ha-Gender ulá (1273), Sefer Ḥayyei has-Néfesh, Sefer Sitrei Torah (1280)— and the Sefer Yetsirá (Otzar Eden Ganuz, Gan Na'ul). b) Manuals technical ecstatic: Ḥayyei ha-Olam ha-Ba (1280), Or ha-Sekhel, Sefer ha-Ḥéšek, Imrei Shefer (1291). c) a Book “prophetic” and the autobiographical: Sefer ha-Yashar (1279), Sefer ha-Ot (1285-88), which tells of visions, methodologies, and its self-understanding, messianic.

The manuscript of Ḥayyei ha-Olam ha-Ba includes complex pie charts (sets of 10 and 128-circles) that encode instructions meditative —tangible proof that his method was not purely speculative.

3) The “cabal prophetic” or ecstatic: method and order

• Goal: to achieve the prophetic experience (devekut/“union”) is understood in the key maimonídea as a conjunction of the human intellect current with the Intellect Agent. Abulafia states that your path does not contradict the philosophy of Maimonides, but that leads to its culmination experiential.
• Tools techniques (summary):
  1. Tzeruf (permutation of letters): combinations systematic Hebrew letters and divine names (sometimes with nikud and ta amei hamikrá), recited with cadences accurate.
  2. Breathing, rhythm and posture: breathing patterns, movements of head and body, and intonation controlled in order to “excite” the consciousness without relax, bringing the focus to the climax ecstatic.
  3. Visualizations and diagrams: letters and names in graphics sequences (circles/wheels), with the rules of progression.
  4. Asceticism high school: fast, white ritual, tefillin, temporary isolation.
     These elements are described programmatically in their manuals.
• Halachah and practice: the mitzvot retain value, but the technical Name and the permutations are the preferred way to activate the prophecy in life; it's not about theosophy sefirótica but of a procedure intellectual-linguistic.

“There is No prophecy, no science, no science without silence.”
— Expresses its conviction that the intellectual preparation and the inner discipline are inseparable.

4) Theology and anthropology mystical

• Language as a pathway: The Hebrew letters (shape, sound, and number) are “vectors” that reconfigure the soul's imaginative and intellectual, purifying the water up to the conjunction.
• Prophecy “in the present”: the prophecy is not closed; it can be updated by discipline technical-intellectual, within the hashgachah divine.
• Messianism spiritualized: in his prophetic books the redemption is understood primarily as inner transformation and intellectual, although Abulafia came to be attributed functions messianic (hence the clash with authorities and the gesture to the pope).

5) Relationship with Maimonides

Abulafia says the Guide in order to “translate” your ideal intellect united protocols practical induction ecstatic. It is a maimonidismo mystic: accepts the metaphysical framework-psychological Guide (intellects, prophecy as a perfection of the intellect and imagination) and adds a technology of letters and breathing.

“Maimonides opened the door of the reason; I opened the prophecy.”
— Bold statement of continuity and improvement of rationalism maimonídeo.

6) Reception, controversy, and legacy

• Controversies of the middle ages. His figure was marked by the side of the Rashbá and by suspicions of heterodoxy, in a climate that culminated in 1305 with general prohibitions to the philosophic study early (broader context of Catalonia, Languedoc).
• Influence internal jewish. Shocked disciples of the direct and indirect (e.g., early stages of Yosef Gikatilla) and currents of technical onomastics in the later mysticism, although his line was relatively marginal in front of the cabal theosophical Zóhar.
• Projection in renaissance Europe. The cabal christian you know your work through channels italo-jewish (Del Medigo, Flavius Mithridates, Alemanno); echoes of your program appear in the circle of Pico della Watching.
• Today: Abulafia is the subject of an extensive renovation academic (Moshe Idel, Elliot R. Wolfson) and edits/manuscripts studied for their extraordinary “engineering” of the language.

7) How to practice (according to Abulafia, is not a guide to current)

What Abulafia prescribed —no as advice, but as a historical description— includes: preparation ascetic brief; sequences of letters/names, breathing as, intonation, and micro-movements cephalic; and display according to pie charts. The intention is not relaxation but hyper decongestive that “breaks” the imagination and allows the conjunction. These steps are explained in Ḥayyei ha-Olam ha-Ba, Or ha-Sekhel and other manuals.

“The purpose of the study is not to know, but be transformed.”
— His mystical is operational: the knowledge has as its goal the transfiguration of the soul.

8) key Texts in order to read it from the source)

• Sefer ha-Ot (the Book of the Sign): autobiographical and visionary; he tells us about his mission, techniques, and experiences.
• Ḥayyei ha-Olam ha-Ba (the Life of the World to Come): technical manual with diagrams and “orders” of breathing/intonation.
• Or ha-Sekhel, Sefer ha-Ḥéšek, Imrei Shefer: guides method to the prophecy (with terminology maimonídea).
• *Comments on Maimonides and the Sefer Yetsirá: articulate your bridge philosophy-mystical.

What you need to know in 10 points

1. Abulafia cover a technical means of prophecy based on letters, rhythms and breathing, other than the cabal sefirótica.
2. Your theoretical framework is maimonídeo: prophecy as a perfection of the intellect and imagination, culminating in the experience.
3. Your corpus combines comments philosophical manuals of meditation and books prophetic-autobiographical.
4. The pie charts are operating instructions, not mere illustrations.
5. In 1280 he tried to to be appealed to pope Nicholas III in key messianic; the pope died the day before; Abulafia was a prisoner and released.
6. Suffered side of rabbinical authorities (Rashbá) for your project and prophetic radicalism.
7. Your messianism emphasizes the redemption interior-intellectual, with moments of self-assign role-messianic.
8. Influenced current onomastic jewish and, via Italy, in the cabal christian of the Renaissance.
9. The modern reading (Idel, Wolfson) saves him as an engineer of the sacred language, not as a theosophist of the Zóhar.
10. Their texts operating (Ḥayyei ha-Olam ha-Ba, Or ha-Sekhel, Sefer ha-Ot) are essential to understand its method.

“In the perfect silence, the Name speaks.”
— Essential paradox in his teaching: the revelation occurs at the cessation of the human voice.

Appendix: chronology minimum

• 1240: Born in Zaragoza. 1258: his father dies. 1260: attempting to travel to Eretz Israel; return to Greece and Italy. 1271-79: education and early works (Capua-Patras). 1280: Sefer Sitrei Torah; a trip to Rome and prison brief; Ḥayyei ha-Olam ha-Ba. 1285-88: Sefer ha-Ot (Messina). 1291+: latest news/works (Imrei Shefer).

Conclusion

Abulafia is not “mysticism nebulous” is a technical program-intellectual to induce states prophetic, articulated with Maimonides and is supported by a grammar of spiritual lyrics, voice and breathing. His figure polarizes because it overflows the exegesis and proposes a technology of the sacred language with a claim messianic. For advanced study, combine the direct reading of Sefer ha-Ot and Ḥayyei ha-Olam ha-Ba with the analysis of Idel and Wolfson.