Dear George, Thank you for your beautiful interpretation of B'reshit (Book of Genesis).
By your description, I have the feeling that you think about Sefirotic Kabbalah. Briefly, Sefirotic Kabbalah believes that God emanated in 10 Sefirot (the meaning of the word is unclear, the root "Seper" is related to the words "letter", "number" and "speech"). This 10 Sefirot are attributes of the divine that need to be in a harmonious relationship with each other in order to pour the divine influx over the world. This school of kabbalists believed that they could influence the Sefirot and in this way exert changes in the divine and human realms, basically making sure that the divine influx continued pouring and sustaining the world. For this reason Sefirotic Kabbalah is also described as Theurgical Kabbalah. The kabbalist I have been talking about, Abraham Abulafia, created a different school. Deeply influenced by Maimonides philosophy (who, in turn, adapted Jewish beliefs to harmonize with Aristotelian philosophy) Abulafia practiced a form of Kabbalah aimed at the union with the divine intellect. To put it in radical terms, his Kabbalah was not about influencing God's divine emanations but to become (part of) God. I think your insight into consciousness is very thought-provoking. >From the whole Creation, nothing makes me feel greater wonder than consciousness. The union with the divine intellect (prophecy) could be probably described as a higher state of consciousness. What is surprising about Abulafia is that he did not reach this state by suppressing his conscious mind, as most mystics do by repetition of a single formula/mantra, but by overstimulating it with letter combinations accompanied by body motions. I haven't thought enough how the technique of letter combinations could be related to consciousness. Any ideas? Shabbat Shalom, R. Rabbit -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
