Eight hundred years before Oliver Sacks started poking around patients’ brains to see how they produce hallucinations, another Jew, Abraham Abulafia, was doing similar research on himself — by purposely inducing his own hallucinations.
Except, he wouldn’t have called them that. To the 13th-century Spanish Kabbalist, these visions, which often featured a human figure that looked just like Abulafia himself, were mind-blowingly great because the figure would reveal secrets about God. Abulafia got this mystical doppelganger to appear by experimenting on himself with sleep deprivation, letter recitation, fasting, breathing exercises — all techniques that can alter your brain.
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