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From southern France and Spain during the Middle Ages appeared methodical and systematized metaphysical speculation. Here, too, there were various schools of mystical thought, including one headed by Abraham Abulafia. Abulafia developed a particular system of meditation in thirteenth-century Spain. The soul, said Abulafia, has certain qualities that enable it to function in a finite world, for the flood of the divine stream, if let freely into the soul, would overwhelm and blind it. Thus, the dilemma for us is to learn how to relate to the inner essence of our soul, to withdraw from the world of diversity into the world of unity without being utterly swallowed by the divine light. To achieve this, Abulafia developed techniques for concentrating on the Hebrew alphabet, arranging, balancing, and harmonizing its letters as carefully as a composer would work with notes. The objective of his/her "play" with the letters and their numerical equivalents was not only to impress their mystic meaning on the soul but to use them as a method for dissolving all mental and sense images, the forms which prevent us from clear contact with the cosmic intellect and force. Abulafia and his followers left numerous guidebooks and personal testimonies of their success in achieving the state of consciousness which the Jewish mystic calls dvekut, an intimate clinging to G-d.
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