Abraham Abulafia, MS JTSA Mic. 1737, fol. 33b

 

And so there are angels when an individual mentions their names he must focus on them by means of the imaginative faculty, and imagine them in the form of human beings, their faces are faces of flame, and their whole bodies a raging fire, some are white fire, some green fire, and some red fire, it is all according to the imagination from which they derive. Similarly, in mentioning some of the names [of God] one must intend certain known intentions. There is a name concerning which one must concentrate that its letters are written before him in red fire or green or white, or in the likeness of gold or silver, and there are some letters that were infinitely enlarged. Each one is in accordance with what is needed in that particular matter, and according to the attribute which is drawn from it. Permission has not been given to write all this explicitly, lest it come to someone who is not worthy and he will destroy the world.

Translated by Elliot Wolfson in Through a Speculum that Shines- Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism, Princeton- Princeton University Press, 1994.

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