WHAT IS MYSTICISM? DOES JUDAISM INVOLVE MYSTICISM? WHAT IS KABBALAH?

From the perspectives of today’s Consciousness Studies and Cognitive Science, one of the most universal definitions of mystical phenomena is through the notion of alteration of consciousness. All mysticisms entail altered states of consciousness (ASCs). However, that’s where similarities end; different mystical experiences involve and are brought about by different kinds, as well as different intensities, of consciousness’ alteration.

Today, the term “Kabbalah” is practically synonymous with “Jewish mysticism” (though the scholars normally prefer to reserve the term Kabbalah for a specific kind of medieval Jewish mysticism).

Kabbalah is Judaism’s mystical core.

In the long, three-millennia stretch of Jewish history there have been many different kinds of Jewish mysticisms—thus many different Kabbalahs. Read more