Acceso usuarios
Premodern esoteric traditions and occult practices emphasize the seemingly-hidden powers of common-day objects made possible via invisible forces and interactions. The wisdom of how to use and channel these powers is potentially accessible everywhere—provided one knows how and where to look—and even the most common objects can reveal hidden truths. I argue that a closer look at food practices and their prescribed uses in premodern occult lore recorded in Iberia can contribute to a deeper understanding of the central role food played in natural philosophy, i.e. the understanding of man's relationship to the material world. Here, I explore the uses of apples in the only extant fifteenth-century copy of the Iberian Sefer Ahavat Nashim (Book of Women's Love) as a metaphoric extension of the theoretical understanding of the Sefirot, which in the Kabbalah are the ten attributes of God. Two of these, Binah (understanding) and Hokhmah (wisdom) are directly mentioned in the first folio of the manuscript as the main ingredients necessary to complete properly and preform the contained magical formulas for love, sex, beautification, and conception. By understanding food's transformative prosperities, possibly communicated covertly by way of food in magical formulas, trained practitioners could reach a higher consciousness and better appreciate the inherent interconnectedness of premodern Iberian practices, thoughts, and cultures.
