THE CIRCLE OF THE SPECIAL CHERUB (Germany, 12th-13th C.) Rabbi Eleazar ben Judah of Worms, The Baal Shem Tov, was a founder of the Hasidim Ashkenazi. He advised mystics who wanted to practice kabbalah to induce a state of Constricted Consciousness. He told them to lie down as if asleep, to concentrate on the Divine Presence by focusing on a single thought: When will I be worthy to receive the divine Light? Do this, he said, and Soon the light of your soul blazes forth, and you ascend to the upper universes [Kaplan, Meditation and Kabbalah, 1982, pp. 274-281]. A vision that Eleazar considered to be especially important, although it was not his own discovery, was The Circle of the Special Cherub. This vision is said to look like an eye with its colored iris and a dark pupil within: in the pupil of an eye is the countenance of the cherub [Wolfson, Through a Speculum that Shines, 1994, p. 228 fn 166]. Wolfson, a scholar of mysticism, explains that The Cherub is the lower glory that is identified as the visible pole of the revelatory experience for both prophet and mystic. Moreover, this lower glory, or Cherub, is a throne for the upper glory that rides or sits upon it [Ibid., p. 233-234]. It is unclear if this is a reference to seeing light-rings, which are the first images to appear in a meditation-induced series, or to seeing the vision that comes next in line, the more amorphous, cloud-like visions with bright central nodes.
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 10:20:39 +0000