Two doctrines that are of primary interest to my work are a form of cosmic reincarnation and cosmic cycles; in the forms I research, one is about natural and supernatural categories transmigrating from one into another. The latter, more radical, entails the scala naturae itself and its categories transforming.
As distinct from reincarnation, cosmic cycles, as I have shown in various studies, is one of the more concealed, censored and sensitive kabbalistic beliefs. Though the idea of cosmic cycles is ancient and appeared in various traditions, my work explores the belief’s appearance toward the end of the thirteenth century, when kabbalists begin to describe other modes of being in previous and future actual worlds. The main question I ask is what purpose might these visions serve, as well as wondering how that impacts on kabbalistic literature, and how these medieval teachings may be relevant for contemporary fields such as posthumanism or Animal-Human Studies.