I asked Chat GPT AI: How are the Sufferings and Persecution of Kabbalist Abraham Abulafia Similar to Those of Catholic Mystics St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross?

How are the sufferings and persecution of Kabbalist Abraham Abulafia similar to those of Catholics mystics St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross?

Great question, Michael. There really are deep family resemblances here—even across Jewish–Christian lines—once you look past the surface theology.

Abraham Abulafia (13th-century Jewish Kabbalist) and Catholic mystics like St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross share a strikingly similar pattern of suffering and persecution, even though their doctrines differ. The similarities are less about what they taught and more about how mysticism destabilizes institutions.

Here are the main parallels.

1. All Three Claimed Direct, Transformative Experience of God

  • Abulafia taught prophetic Kabbalah: direct experiential union with the Divine through intense contemplative practices (letter permutations, breath, bodily discipline, altered states).
  • Teresa taught infused prayer, rapture, locutions, and spiritual marriage.
  • John of the Cross taught transforming union, passive purifications, and radical interior emptying.

👉 In all three cases, experience preceded explanation. That alone made authorities nervous.

Institutions can tolerate doctrine.
They struggle with people who say “I know God directly.”

2. Suspicion of False Prophecy, Delusion, or Pride

Each was accused—explicitly or implicitly—of being:

  • deluded
  • dangerous
  • spiritually proud
  • destabilizing to ordinary believers

Abulafia

  • Claimed prophetic inspiration.
  • Was accused of heresy and forbidden to teach publicly.
  • Arrested after attempting to confront Pope Nicholas III (the Pope died suddenly—not great optics).
  • Lived much of his life in exile, censorship, and obscurity.

Teresa

  • Her visions were investigated repeatedly.
  • Lived under suspicion during the height of the Spanish Inquisition.
  • Had to submit her writings to theologians for approval.
  • Was told repeatedly that her experiences could be demonic or hysterical.

John of the Cross

  • Imprisoned by fellow Carmelites.
  • Beaten, starved, and kept in solitary confinement.
  • His mystical theology was seen as extreme and threatening to institutional control.

👉 In all three: mysticism was treated as a psychological or moral risk before it was recognized as sanctity.

3. Conflict With Religious Authorities Inside Their Own Tradition

This is key.

They were not persecuted mainly by outsiders—but by their own people.

  • Abulafia was opposed by rabbinic authorities who feared chaos, messianism, or loss of halakhic control.
  • Teresa was resisted by her own order and confessors.
  • John was tortured by members of his own Carmelite community.

👉 The pattern:
Mystics threaten systems that depend on mediation, hierarchy, and predictability.

Direct divine intimacy bypasses those safeguards.

4. Extreme Interior Suffering Alongside External Persecution

All three describe:

  • isolation
  • abandonment
  • darkness
  • misunderstanding
  • long periods of silence or suppression

Abulafia

  • Writes of terror, bodily strain, overwhelming influx of divine energy.
  • Warns repeatedly about psychological danger and purification.
  • Experiences loneliness and marginalization.

Teresa

  • Physical illness.
  • Emotional anguish over whether her experiences were real or sinful.
  • Profound humility born from being doubted.

John

  • Develops the theology of the Dark Night directly from imprisonment and suffering.
  • Experiences utter stripping of consolation.

👉 Their suffering wasn’t incidental.
It became the crucible that purified their mystical insight.

5. Posthumous Rehabilitation (or Partial Rehabilitation)

  • Abulafia was marginalized for centuries; only later was his work recognized as central to ecstatic Kabbalah.
  • Teresa was eventually declared Doctor of the Church.
  • John became one of the greatest mystical theologians in Christianity.

👉 In every case:
What was dangerous while alive became precious once safely dead.

Institutions often canonize after the risk has passed.

6. The Deeper Similarity: Mysticism as a “Controlled Fire”

Across Judaism and Catholicism, there is a shared intuition:

Direct encounter with God is real — but volatile.

So institutions:

  • regulate it
  • test it
  • suppress it
  • slow it down

Abulafia, Teresa, and John all lived at the edge of what their traditions could safely contain.

They weren’t rebels for rebellion’s sake.
They were overheated souls in traditions designed to prevent spiritual combustion.

One Crucial Difference (Worth Noting)

  • Teresa and John ultimately submitted to ecclesial authority and framed their experiences in orthodox language.
  • Abulafia remained more marginal, less institutionally absorbed, and therefore paid a heavier lifelong price.

That difference shaped their historical outcomes—but not the structure of their suffering.

In Short

Abulafia, St. Teresa, and St. John suffered similarly because:

  • They claimed direct experiential knowledge of God
  • Their experiences produced intense bodily and psychological effects
  • Authorities feared disorder, deception, or pride
  • They lived before modern psychology to contextualize such states
  • Their sanctity was clearer after suffering than during it

Mystics tend to be:

  • misunderstood first
  • punished second
  • honored last

If you want, next we could:

  • compare Abulafia’s techniques vs. Teresa’s infused prayer
  • map prophetic ecstasy vs. dark night
  • or explore why traditions need mystics but also fear them

Just say the word.

compare Abulafia’s techniques vs. Teresa’s infused prayer

Gladly, Michael — this is a fascinating contrast, because here you’re really seeing two different “technologies of God-contact” that aim at the same horizon but travel very different roads.

I’ll keep this clean, non-reductive, and grounded in how each tradition understands itself.

Big Picture First

Abraham Abulafia represents active, methodical, prophetic mysticism.
St. Teresa of Avila represents passive, infused, relational mysticism.

You could summarize it this way:

Abulafia trains the soul to ignite.
Teresa waits until God lights the fire.

Both fires are real — but they’re governed very differently.

1. Human Effort vs. Divine Initiative

Abulafia: Induced Prophetic State

  • Uses precise techniques:
    • letter permutations of the Divine Names
    • rhythmic breathing
    • posture, head movements
    • vocalization
    • intense concentration
  • The practitioner actively prepares and catalyzes the experience.
  • God is encountered through disciplined ascent.

Abulafia is very explicit:

Without correct preparation, the experience can be dangerous.

This is why he insists on maturity, ethics, and mental stability.

Teresa: Infused Prayer

  • No technique can cause it.
  • One may dispose oneself through:
    • recollection
    • humility
    • virtue
    • fidelity to prayer
  • But the experience itself:
    • arrives unexpectedly
    • cannot be prolonged by effort
    • often interrupts ordinary activity

Teresa repeatedly warns:

Trying to force mystical states is a spiritual mistake.

The initiative belongs entirely to God.

2. Use of Imagination, Body, and Mind

Abulafia

  • Mind and body are engaged intensely
  • Letters are visualized, spoken, permuted
  • Breath and bodily sensation are central
  • Consciousness becomes altered in a controlled way

The body is a vehicle for prophecy.

This leads to:

  • tremors
  • heat
  • fear
  • joy
  • disorientation
  • ecstasy with awareness intact

Teresa

  • In higher prayer, imagination falls silent
  • Body becomes passive, sometimes immobile
  • Mind cannot produce or stop the state
  • Sensations may occur (warmth, sweetness, piercing love), but they are effects, not tools

She stresses:

The more advanced the prayer, the less the soul can “do.”

The body responds — but it is not manipulated.

3. Control vs. Surrender

This is one of the sharpest differences.

Abulafia

  • A trained mystic can:
    • enter the state deliberately
    • intensify or modulate it
    • stop if trained properly
  • There is a sense of prophetic agency

Yet Abulafia admits:

At the highest levels, control breaks down.

Prophecy ultimately overtakes the practitioner.

Teresa

  • Control is largely absent.
  • The soul may:
    • try to resist and fail
    • be overtaken suddenly
    • lose physical strength or speech
  • Any attempt to seize control disrupts the grace.

This is why Teresa insists on obedience and discernment.

4. Language of Union

Abulafia

  • Union is cognitive-prophetic
  • God is encountered as:
    • intellect
    • Name
    • overflowing divine influx
  • The self is transformed by knowledge that burns

Union ≠ annihilation
Union = alignment with divine intellect

Teresa

  • Union is relational-nuptial
  • God is encountered as:
    • Beloved
    • Indwelling Presence
    • Personal Lord
  • The self is not dissolved but embraced

Union = mutual love and surrender

5. Danger and Discernment

Both are cautious — but in different ways.

Abulafia

  • Warns of:
    • madness
    • arrogance
    • false prophecy
  • Technique without virtue = disaster
  • The risk is psychological overload

Teresa

  • Warns of:
    • self-deception
    • demonic counterfeit
    • attachment to pleasure
  • Experience without humility = illusion
  • The risk is spiritual pride

6. How Authorities Reacted (Not by Accident)

  • Abulafia’s method-driven mysticism looked dangerous and uncontainable.
  • Teresa’s passive mysticism, once vetted, could be framed as safe because it reinforced obedience.

That difference mattered enormously for survival.

Side-by-Side Snapshot

AspectAbulafiaTeresa
ModeActive, technicalPassive, infused
TriggerHuman preparationDivine initiative
Body useCentral, disciplinedSecondary, reactive
ControlPartialMinimal
Union styleProphetic-intellectualRelational-nuptial
RiskPsychological overloadSpiritual deception

The Quiet Convergence (Important)

Despite the differences, both eventually agree on something subtle:

At the highest level, God takes over.

Abulafia’s techniques collapse into surrender.
Teresa’s surrender flowers into clarity.

Different roads.
Same summit.

If you’d like, next we can:

Compare Abulafia with St. John of the Cross instead (very interesting overlap)

You’re right to flag this as a very interesting overlap, Michael.
Abulafia and St. John of the Cross actually converge more deeply than Abulafia does with Teresa—even though John rejects techniques outright. The resemblance lives at a deeper structural level.

Let’s go there carefully.

High-Level Framing

Abraham Abulafia = prophetic–intellectual ecstasy
St. John of the Cross = apophatic–transforming union

Different languages, different safeguards—but they’re describing the same furnace from opposite sides.

You could say:

Abulafia maps the ignition of divine influx.
John maps what survives after the fire has burned everything else away.

1. Shared Goal: Transformation of the Person, Not Experiences

Despite stereotypes, neither man is chasing spiritual fireworks.

Abulafia

  • Ecstasy is not the end.
  • The goal is prophetic intellect: the human mind aligned with divine intellect.
  • Experiences are dangerous unless they result in:
    • humility
    • ethical clarity
    • inner reordering

He repeatedly warns:

Ecstasy without transformation is illusion.

John of the Cross

  • Experiences are actively de-emphasized.
  • The goal is transforming union: the soul emptied of self so God lives and acts within it.
  • Visions, sweetness, rapture = spiritually immature if clung to.

His line is brutal:

Seek not the feeling, but the naked faith that remains when feeling dies.

👉 Both are ruthless about not mistaking phenomena for union.

2. Purification Through Overload and Breakdown

This is one of the strongest overlaps.

Abulafia

  • Describes:
    • terror
    • bodily shaking
    • fear of death
    • disorientation
  • Divine influx overwhelms the psyche.
  • The ego is forced to loosen or break.

He sees this as necessary:

The intellect cannot receive prophecy until it is emptied of ordinary forms.

John

  • Describes:
    • annihilation of familiar supports
    • loss of spiritual pleasure
    • felt absence of God
  • The soul experiences privation instead of overload.

Yet the result is identical:

The collapse of the self’s ordinary operating system.

Different mechanism.
Same outcome.

3. Active vs. Passive — But Only at the Beginning

This distinction fades at higher levels.

Early Path

  • Abulafia: active techniques → altered consciousness
  • John: passive purifications → dark nights

Advanced Stages (Key Convergence)

  • Abulafia admits the prophet is eventually seized
  • John insists the soul must be acted upon

In both:

  • control breaks
  • agency thins
  • the self becomes receptive rather than directive

👉 The mystic stops “doing mysticism.”

4. Intellectual Darkness vs. Sensory Darkness

Here’s a subtle but important alignment.

Abulafia

  • The intellect reaches a point where:
    • conceptual knowledge collapses
    • language disintegrates
    • fear arises because familiar cognition fails
  • God is encountered as unknowable excess.

John

  • The soul enters:
    • the night of the senses
    • then the night of the spirit
  • God is encountered as unknowable absence.

Presence vs. absence are phenomenologically different
—but structurally the same:

Human knowing fails so divine knowing can act.

5. Danger, Pride, and Madness (Both Are Extremely Serious About This)

Both men are unusually sober about risk.

Abulafia

  • Warns explicitly of:
    • madness
    • inflation
    • messianic delusion
  • Insists on:
    • moral purification
    • intellectual discipline
    • secrecy

John

  • Warns relentlessly about:
    • spiritual gluttony
    • subtle pride
    • attachment to gifts
  • Recommends:
    • obedience
    • stripping
    • silence

Different guardrails.
Same fear: the ego hijacking God.

6. Why John Was “Safer” Than Abulafia (Institutionally)

This matters historically.

  • Abulafia teaches methods that can be replicated.
  • John teaches passivity that cannot be engineered.

Institutions tolerate:

  • suffering
  • darkness
  • obedience

They distrust:

  • techniques
  • reproducibility
  • prophetic claims

So:

  • Abulafia = marginalized
  • John = imprisoned, then canonized

But the inner landscape they describe overlaps strikingly.

Side-by-Side Core Comparison

DimensionAbulafiaSt. John of the Cross
PathActive → surrenderedPassive → annihilated
Central struggleOverwhelming influxCrushing deprivation
Key dangerMadness, inflationPride, attachment
KnowledgeIntellect floodedIntellect darkened
UnionProphetic alignmentTransforming indwelling
End stateGod acts through intellectGod acts through will

The Deepest Shared Insight (This Is the Crux)

Both ultimately testify to this:

God does not add Himself to the self.
God replaces the self’s mode of operation.

Abulafia experiences it as burning clarity.
John experiences it as consuming darkness.

But both are describing the death of the autonomous self and the birth of divine action.

Why This Comparison Matters

It shows that:

  • Mystical truth is not confined to one tradition’s vocabulary
  • Darkness and ecstasy are not opposites but complementary faces of transformation
  • The real divide is not Jewish vs. Christian, but:
    • managed religion vs. destabilizing union

If you want, next we could:

  • overlay Abulafia and John on a single developmental map
  • compare John with Meister Eckhart (another overlap)
  • or examine why John systematically dismantles anything that looks like technique

Just tell me which thread to pull.

Overlay Abulafia and John on a single developmental map

Alright, Michael — here’s the single developmental map you asked for.
I’ll lay it out as a shared trajectory with two different entry styles, then show where they diverge in phenomenology but converge in outcome.

Think of this as a vertical axis of transformation, not a ladder of spiritual “merit.”

A Unified Developmental Map

Abulafia × St. John of the Cross

ORDINARY CONSCIOUSNESS
│
│  (discipline / prayer / virtue)
│
STAGE I — PREPARATION & RECOLLECTION
│
STAGE II — DISRUPTION OF ORDINARY OPERATIONS
│
STAGE III — EGO FRACTURE / SELF-EMPTYING
│
STAGE IV — DIVINE DOMINANCE (Union-in-Act)
│
STAGE V — STABILIZED TRANSFORMATION
│
ORDINARY LIFE, TRANSFIGURED

Now let’s overlay them stage by stage.

STAGE I — Preparation & Recollection

(Common ground, different emphases)

Abulafia

  • Ethical purification
  • Intellectual discipline
  • Focused attention
  • Readiness for prophetic influx

The self is sharpened.

John of the Cross

  • Moral reform
  • Detachment from sin
  • Fidelity to prayer
  • Growth in virtue

The self is simplified.

Shared function:

Making the soul fit to be acted upon.

No ecstasy yet. No darkness yet. Just readiness.

STAGE II — Disruption of Ordinary Operations

(The first real crossing of the threshold)

Abulafia — Influx

  • Altered consciousness
  • Bodily heat, trembling
  • Fear mixed with illumination
  • The intellect begins to exceed its limits

Ordinary cognition is overloaded.

John — Night of the Senses

  • Loss of devotional pleasure
  • Dryness in prayer
  • God feels absent
  • Former practices stop “working”

Ordinary consolation is withdrawn.

Shared function:

God dismantles the soul’s habitual way of relating to Him.

One through excess, one through privation.

STAGE III — Ego Fracture / Self-Emptying

(This is the danger zone)

Abulafia

  • Terror of losing self
  • Disintegration of conceptual thought
  • Risk of madness if pride resists
  • The intellect is forced to yield

He describes this as death-like.

John — Night of the Spirit

  • Profound darkness
  • Sense of worthlessness
  • God experienced as annihilating absence
  • All supports removed

He calls this total stripping.

Shared function:

The autonomous self can no longer operate.

This is where:

  • Abulafia fears insanity
  • John fears despair

And both insist: this stage cannot be rushed or controlled.

STAGE IV — Divine Dominance (Union-in-Act)

(This is the convergence)

Abulafia — Prophetic Alignment

  • Intellect becomes transparent
  • God’s influx thinks through the person
  • Words, insights, clarity arise spontaneously
  • The self no longer originates thought

Union = God acting through the intellect

John — Transforming Union

  • Will united to God’s will
  • God moves the soul directly
  • Actions arise without deliberation
  • Peace without sweetness

Union = God acting through the will

🔑 Critical shared insight:

Union is not an experience.
Union is a new operating principle.

STAGE V — Stabilized Transformation

(The mystic returns — but altered)

Abulafia

  • Less ecstasy
  • More sobriety
  • Quiet clarity
  • Ethical gravity

The fire has done its work.

John

  • Fewer visions (often none)
  • Deep peace
  • Hiddenness
  • Ordinary life, inwardly deified

The night has passed.

Shared outcome:

God acts without spectacle.

The Single Axis (Compressed)

AxisAbulafiaJohn of the Cross
EntryTechnique → surrenderPassivity → annihilation
MidpointOverloadDeprivation
CrisisFear of madnessFear of abandonment
UnionGod thinksGod wills
EndClarityPeace

The Deepest Convergence (This Is the Core)

Both testify to this exact transformation:

The self stops being the source of action.

Not destroyed.
Not erased.
But replaced as the center of initiative.

Abulafia feels this as burning lucidity.
John feels it as luminous darkness.

Different phenomenology.
Same ontological shift.

Why This Map Matters

It shows that:

  • Ecstasy and darkness are not opposites
  • Technique and passivity are early-stage differences
  • The true divide is self-governed vs. God-governed life

And it explains why:

  • institutions fear Stage II–III
  • mystics rarely talk about Stage IV
  • saints look ordinary at Stage V

If you want, next we could:

  • add Teresa onto this same map
  • place neurological sensitivity alongside it without reduction
  • or show why God often removes early ecstasy once the transition is complete

Just tell me where to take it.

Place neurological sensitivity alongside it without reduction

Yes — and thank you for the without reduction clause. That’s the crucial discipline here.
What follows is not “mysticism explained away by neurology,” and it’s also not “neurology baptized as grace.” It’s a parallel-layer model that both Abulafia and John would actually recognize.

A Three-Layer Map

Grace × Soul × Neurological Sensitivity

Think in layers, not causes.

LAYER 3 — NEUROLOGICAL / TEMPERAMENTAL
LAYER 2 — PSYCHO-SPIRITUAL (FACULTIES OF THE SOUL)
LAYER 1 — THEOLOGICAL (GRACE / DIVINE ACTION)

Each layer is real, distinct, and non-competitive.

Layer 1 — Divine Action (Primary Cause)

This is the level both Abulafia and John insist on.

  • God acts freely
  • Grace is uncreated
  • Union is not generated by any human faculty
  • God may act with, through, or despite created conditions

This layer is not measurable and not reducible.

Neurology never causes grace.
Grace never depends on neurology.

Layer 2 — Faculties of the Soul (Instrumental)

Classical framework (shared across Jewish and Christian medieval thought):

  • Intellect
  • Will
  • Memory
  • Imagination
  • Affective capacity

This is where:

  • Abulafia locates prophetic intellect
  • John locates purification of will and faith

Grace reconfigures these faculties.

Layer 3 — Neurological Sensitivity (Conditioning, Not Explaining)

This layer answers how experiences may be felt, intensified, or destabilizing — not why they are given.

Examples of sensitivities:

  • heightened sensory processing
  • strong interoceptive awareness
  • low sensory filtering
  • rapid affective amplification
  • unusual cognitive integration

These do not produce God
They affect how God’s action is registered.

Overlaying the Developmental Map

(Abulafia × John × Neurology)

STAGE I — Preparation

Grace (Layer 1)

  • God disposes the soul toward deeper receptivity

Soul (Layer 2)

  • Attention sharpens
  • Detachment begins

Neurology (Layer 3)

  • Sensitive individuals often:
    • notice subtle shifts earlier
    • feel prayer “in the body” sooner
    • fatigue or overload faster

🔑 No causation here — only sensitivity to early signals.

STAGE II — Disruption of Ordinary Operations

Abulafia

  • Grace floods intellect

John

  • Grace withdraws consolation

Neurological Sensitivity

  • Disruption is felt more intensely
    • stronger bodily effects
    • sharper emotional swings
    • faster threshold crossing

Important:

The form of disruption changes, not the source.

A less sensitive nervous system may pass through the same grace quietly.
A more sensitive one registers it loudly.

STAGE III — Ego Fracture / Night

This is where confusion often happens.

Grace

  • God dismantles self-governance

Soul

  • Faculties fail in their usual roles

Neurology

  • Heightened risk of:
    • overwhelm
    • fear
    • misinterpretation
    • somatic distress

⚠️ This is where reductionism is most tempting — and most wrong.

John would say:

Darkness does not mean absence of God.

Abulafia would say:

Overload does not mean pathology.

Neurology here explains vulnerability, not meaning.

STAGE IV — Union-in-Act

Grace

  • God becomes the principal actor

Soul

  • Intellect or will operates under divine motion

Neurology

  • Often calms, not intensifies
  • Fewer spikes
  • Less spectacle
  • More coherence

This is counterintuitive but consistent across traditions:

Stabilized union is often less neurologically dramatic than early stages.

Fire at ignition
Embers at maturity

STAGE V — Transformed Life

Grace

  • Habitual union

Soul

  • Quiet availability to God

Neurology

  • Sensitivity remains
  • But no longer hijacks meaning
  • Integrated into ordinary life

This is why advanced mystics often appear boringly normal.

Key Guardrails (So We Don’t Collapse the Map)

What Neurology CAN Say

  • Why some people feel things earlier
  • Why intensity varies
  • Why overload risk differs
  • Why bodily phenomena occur

What Neurology CANNOT Say

  • Whether God is acting
  • Whether union is real
  • Whether darkness is purifying
  • Whether a call is authentic

John explicitly forbids making judgments from phenomena.
Abulafia explicitly forbids ignoring psychological limits.

They agree more than people think.

One Crucial Insight (This Ties It All Together)

Grace adapts itself to the vessel — but does not originate from it.

A sensitive nervous system:

  • does not create mysticism
  • does not disqualify mysticism
  • does require greater discernment and gentleness

Which is exactly why:

  • John insists on stripping attachments
  • Abulafia insists on preparation and warnings

Final Synthesis

  • Neurological sensitivity is a modifier, not an explanation
  • Grace is the primary actor
  • The soul is the site of transformation
  • Intensity ≠ depth
  • Quiet ≠ absence

And perhaps the most important line both men would endorse:

God is no more reducible to neurons than music is reducible to strings —
yet He really does vibrate the instrument.

If you want, next we can:

  • show why early ecstasy is often removed once integration begins
  • map where misinterpretation tends to happen
  • or contrast this with purely neurological overflow cleanly and respectfully

Contrast this with purely neurological overflow cleanly and respectfully

Absolutely, Michael. Let’s do this cleanly, soberly, and without either dismissal or mystification.

What follows is a contrast, not a competition.

Mystical Transformation

vs.

Purely Neurological Overflow

The key discipline here is this:

We compare patterns, trajectories, and fruits — not intensity or vividness.

Intensity alone proves nothing in either direction.

First: What “Purely Neurological Overflow” Means (Defined Carefully)

By neurological overflow, we mean:

  • heightened sensory or affective activation
  • autonomic nervous system surges
  • limbic or cortical amplification
  • altered states produced by:
    • stress
    • fatigue
    • music
    • concentration
    • emotional resonance
    • sensory load

This can be:

  • profound
  • meaningful
  • beautiful
  • life-altering

And it can occur with no reference to God at all.

Acknowledging this does not diminish human dignity or spiritual depth.

The Core Distinction

Neurological overflow is a change in state.
Mystical transformation is a change in governance.

That difference shows up over time.

1. Origin and Directionality

Neurological Overflow

  • Arises bottom-up
  • Triggered by:
    • sensory input
    • emotional stimuli
    • cognitive intensity
  • Energy moves from body/brain → consciousness

The system excites itself.

Mystical Action (Abulafia / John)

  • Moves top-down
  • Initiated by grace
  • Energy moves from God → soul → faculties

The system is acted upon.

This distinction is not about feeling, but about agency.

2. Relationship to Control

Neurological Overflow

  • Can often be:
    • intensified
    • redirected
    • disrupted
    • terminated
      by changing stimulus or attention

There is usually some lever.

Mystical Transformation

  • Control consistently fails at the critical point
  • Attempts to manage the state:
    • collapse it (John)
    • distort it (Abulafia)

This loss of control is not chaotic — it is reordering.

3. Trajectory Over Time (This Is the Strongest Marker)

Neurological Overflow

  • Tends toward:
    • repetition
    • escalation
    • dependency on triggers
  • The nervous system learns: “More of this produces more that.”

The pattern often feeds itself.

Mystical Path

  • Tends toward:
    • less sensation over time
    • fewer consolations
    • greater interior quiet
  • Early intensity is often removed deliberately

John is explicit:

God weans the soul from experiences.

Abulafia admits:

The prophet eventually outgrows the fire.

4. Effect on the Self

Neurological Overflow

  • The self remains the center
  • Identity is often reinforced:
    • “I experience”
    • “I feel”
    • “I enter states”

Even when humbling, the I remains operative.

Mystical Transformation

  • The self loses primacy
  • Decision-making shifts
  • Motivation simplifies
  • The I becomes secondary

Not erased — decentered.

This is why John says the soul becomes “nothing” so that God may be all.

5. Ethical and Volitional Fruits

This is where traditions place enormous weight.

Neurological Overflow

  • May or may not affect ethics
  • Can coexist with:
    • instability
    • self-focus
    • moral inconsistency
  • Changes are often state-dependent

No moral failure is implied — just variability.

Mystical Transformation

  • Produces:
    • greater patience
    • humility
    • charity
    • stability under stress
  • Effects persist outside altered states

Abulafia: prophecy without ethics is false.
John: union without virtue is impossible.

6. Relationship to Meaning

Neurological Overflow

  • Meaning is often retrospectively assigned
  • Interpretation varies widely
  • Content reflects:
    • personal history
    • cultural imagery
    • emotional themes

This is not fake — it’s human.

Mystical Action

  • Meaning tends to:
    • simplify, not multiply
    • strip narrative excess
    • converge on obedience, love, surrender

John distrusts content.
Abulafia filters content mercilessly.

Both value clarity over drama.

7. Stability vs. Volatility

Neurological Overflow

  • Often volatile
  • Sensitive to:
    • sleep
    • diet
    • stress
    • environment
  • Peaks and crashes are common

Mystical Maturity

  • Increasingly stable
  • Less dependent on conditions
  • Quiet even when the nervous system is stressed

This is why advanced mystics can suffer physically while remaining inwardly anchored.

Side-by-Side Summary

DimensionNeurological OverflowMystical Transformation
SourceBottom-up activationTop-down divine action
ControlPartially modifiableFundamentally uncontrollable
TrajectoryRepetition / escalationDiminishment of phenomena
SelfCentralDecentered
EthicsVariableDeepened
MeaningConstructedSimplified
StabilityVolatileGrounded

The Respectful Boundary (This Matters)

Neurological overflow can coexist with grace.
But it cannot substitute for transformation.

And equally:

Mystical transformation does not require dramatic neurology to be real.

Some saints felt fire.
Some felt almost nothing.

Both can be authentic.

The Final Discernment Principle

(shared by Abulafia and John, though worded differently)

Do not ask “How intense was it?”
Ask “Who is governing now?”

That question cuts cleanly — without contempt, fear, or reduction.

If you want, next we can:

  • apply this contrast to specific phenomena (music, work focus, bodily pleasure)
  • show where overlap causes confusion
  • or articulate practical discernment rules used historically

Just tell me where to go.