Maimonides' Magical Universe + How to Become an Angel

An attempt to leave our 21st century heads and get back into the mind of a 12th century philosopher who saw the world in entirely different ways than we do. Diving into the Middle Ages thought the mind of Maimonides. Exploring Maimonides on the Cosmic Spheres, the Flow, the Active Intellect, his theory prophecy and.. how to becoming an angel.

Sources and Further Reading  

•  A. J. Heschel, “Did Maimonides Believe That He Had Attained the Rank of Prophet,” in Prophetic Inspiration After the Prophets, 1996, pp. 69-126 

•  Adam Afterman “And They Shall Be One Flesh”: On the Language of Mystical Union in Judaism, 2016, p. 103-127 •  Adam Afterman, “Moses Maimonides on the Holy Spirit,” in Journal of Religion vol. 100, 2020 

•  Alexander Altmann, Maimonides's Attitude Toward Jewish Mysticism, p. 213 

•  Alfred Ivry, The Guide and Maimonides’ Philosophical Sources, p. 59 •  Christopher A. Morray-Jones, ‘‘Transformational Mysticism in the Apocalyptic-Merkabah Tradition,’’ Journal of Jewish Studies 43 (1992): pp. 1–31 

•  Daniel Abrams, “Orality in the Kabbalistic School of Nahmanides: Preserving and Interpreting Esoteric Traditions and Texts,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 2 (1995): 85–102 

•  Diana Lobel, “’Silence Is Praise to You’: Maimonides on Negative Theology, Looseness of Expression, and Religious Experience,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 76, no. 1 (2002): 31-58 

•  Diana Lobel, “A Dwelling Place for the Shekhinah.” Jewish Quarterly Review 90 (1999): 103–125 

•  Elliot Wolfson, ‘‘Yeridah la-Merkavah: Typology of Ecstasy and Enthronement in Early Jewish Mysticism,’’ Mystics of the Book, 13–44, esp. pp. 23–26 •  Elliot Wolfson, “By Way of Truth: Aspects of Nahmanides’ Kabbalistic Hermeneutic,” AJS Review 14, (1989): 153–78 

•  Elliot Wolfson, “Mysticism and the Poetic-Liturgical,” p. 186 

•  Elliot Wolfson, “Seven Mysteries,” p. 191 

 •  Haviva Pedaya, Nahmanides: Cyclical Time and Holy Text, (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2003) (Hebrew). 

•  Ithamar Gruenwald, “Maimonides’ Quest beyond Philosophy and Prophecy,” in Perspectives, ed. J. L. Kraemer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 147 

•  Justin Sledge, “Maimonides at the Crossroads of Jewish Occultism, Magic and the Kabbalah” @ESOTERICA, Youtube, 15 April 2022, https://youtu.be/i6qclz26OYY

•  Matthew David Litwa, Posthuman Transformation in Ancient Mediterranean Thought, Becoming Angels and Demons, Cambridge and New York, Cambridge University Press, 2021 

•  Moshe Idel, “Enoch is Metatron,” Immanuel 24/25 (1990): 234–237 

•  Moshe Idel, “Rabbi Moshe ben Nahman: Kabbalah, Halachah and Spiritual Leadership,” Tarbiz 64, (1995): 535–580 (Hebrew) 

•  Moshe Idel, “We Have No Kabbalistic Tradition on This,” in Rabbi Moses Nahmanides: Explorations in His Religious and Literary Virtuosity, 1983, 51–73 •  Moshe Idel, The Angelic World, pp. 102-4; 210 

•  Pico Della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man, trans. A. Robert Caponigri, 1967, p. 9 

•  Sarah Pessin, The Influence of Islamic Thought on Maimonides, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2005