A01=Jonathan Garb
Author_Jonathan Garb
cabala
carl jung
Category=QRJ
Category=QRVK2
comparative religions
consciousness
empowerment
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
faith
hasidic trances
heavenly mountains
historical
history
jewish thought
judaism
kabbalists
mental methods
milton erickson
modernity
mysticism
psychological
psychology
religion
religious studies
ritual
shamanic hasidism
shamanism
social sciences
study
trance states
transformation
Product details
- ISBN 9780226282077
- Weight: 539g
- Dimensions: 16 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 15 May 2011
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Bringing to light a hidden chapter in the history of modern Judaism, "Shamanic Trance in Modern Kabbalah" explores the shamanic dimensions of Jewish mysticism. Jonathan Garb integrates methods and models from the social sciences, comparative religion, and Jewish studies to offer a fresh view of the early modern kabbalists and their social and psychological contexts. Through close readings of numerous texts - some translated here for the first time - Garb draws a more complete picture of the kabbalists than previous depictions, revealing them to be as concerned with deeper states of consciousness as they were with study and ritual. Garb discovers that they developed physical and mental methods to induce trance states, visions of heavenly mountains, and transformations into animals or bodies of light. To gain a deeper understanding of the kabbalists' shamanic practices, Garb compares their experiences with those of mystics from other traditions as well as with those recorded by psychologists such as Milton Erickson and Carl Jung.
Finally, Garb examines the kabbalists' relations with the wider Jewish community, uncovering the role of kabbalistic shamanism in the renewal of Jewish tradition as it contended with modernity.
Jonathan Garb is a senior lecturer in the Department of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University and the author of, most recently, The Chosen Will Become Herds: Studies in Twentieth-Century Kabbalah.
