Kabbalah (literally "tradition") is used both as a general name for Jewish mysticism and as the specific designation for its major medieval variety. Mystical awareness is to be found in the biblical and rabbinic tradition and had literary expression in some of the prophetic writings, psalms, and apocalypses. More characteristically, however, what is referred to as Kabbalah is a type of occult theosophical formulation of the doctrines of the Jewish religion, particularly those concerned with creation, revelation, and redemption. This occult system structures and, in part, fossilizes individual intuitions of divine reality in terms of the culture in which it arose. Typically, the purpose of the complicated structuring of these formulated intuitions is to supply a focus in contemplation by which the Kabbalist can recover the untarnished brightness of direct mystical awareness.

Besides the sources of Kabbalah in the doctrines and literature of the Jewish tradition, a wide...