Arzy Shahar, Idel Moshe. Kabbalah: A Neurocognitive Approach to Mystical Experiences

Yale University Press, 2015. — 214 p. — ISBN 978-0-300-15236-4.In this original study, Moshe Idel, an eminent scholar of Jewish mysticism and thought, and the cognitive neuroscientist and neurologist Shahar Arzy combine their considerable expertise to explore the mysteries of the Kabbalah from an entirely new perspective: that of the human brain. In lieu of the theological, sociological, and psychoanalytic approaches that have generally dominated the study of ecstatic mystical experiences, the authors endeavor to decode the brain mechanisms underlying these phenomena. Arzy and Idel analyze first-person descriptions to explore the Kabbalistic techniques employed by most prominent Jewish mystics to effect bodily reduplications, dissociations, and other phenomena, and compare them with recent neurological observations and modern-day laboratory experiments. The resultant study offers readers a scientific, more brain-based understanding of how ecstatic Kabbalists achieved their most precious mystical experiences. The study further demonstrates how these Kabbalists have long functioned as pioneering investigators of the human self.Justification of a Neurocognitive Approach to Mystical Experiences
Four Main Approaches to Mystical Experiences
A “Bottom-Up” Approach to Mystical Experiences
Experiences, Radiations, and Cognitive Techniques
Technical Constructivism from Within the Brain: Limitations
Approaching Ecstatic Experiences
Ecstasy and the Subjective Experience
Ecstasy in Judaism
Four Basic Levels of Ecstasy in Jewish Mysticism
Four Types of Ecstatic Experience in Jewish Mysticism
Ecstasy and the Cognitive Neuroscience of the Self
The One out There: Autoscopic Phenomena in Jewish Mysticism
Ex-Stasis: Out of the Body
Autoscopic Phenomena
Autoscopic Phenomena in Ecstatic Kabbalah
Personal Reports of Mystical Experiences
Analyzing Mystical Experiences
Autoscopic, Ascension, and Unitive Ecstasies: Different Kabbalistic Trends, Different Brain MechanismsThe Spirit in the Brain: Trance and Possession in Jewish Mysticism
Dissociative Trance Disorders
Maggid and Dibbuq
The Maggid and Its Induction
Personal Reports of Mystical Dissociative Experiences
Maggid, Dibbuq, and the Brain
Maggid and Dibbuq: Two Selves in One Person
Conclusions