The Book of Desire

Abraham Abulafia (1240-c.1291) was a widely-traveled Jewish writer and visionary mystic famed for his blend of Maimonidean rationalism, Neoplatonic philosophy, Hermeticism, and ecstatic Kabbalah. Born in Zaragoza, Spain, Abulafia traveled throughout the Mediterranean, writing and spreading a universal message to both Jewish and gentile audiences. His travels included a daring attempt to convert Pope Nicholas III, though the pope died the day he arrived in Rome. Despite his attempts to spread a popular message, Abulafia's writing is obscure and abstruse, rich in technical jargon and symbolic language drawing from Torah, Talmud, history, Kabbalah, astrology, and even early atomic theory, using mystical tools such as meditative practices, gematria, ciphers, and permutations of divine names and strings of letters. Abulafia is, therefore, rarely translated, as his wordplay and codes are bound to elements of the Hebrew language. The Book of Desire is a work of Prophetic Kabbalah which seeks to unify the world of physical mechanics with theology via the concept of Desire as the cosmic, motive force behind all action, using language as a bridge between the material and the psychic realms. Through this insight, Abulafia seeks to cleave to G-d, the universal source of all being.