Moshe Idel on Kabbalah.

“The main issue to be learnt from the Kabbalah according to this Kabbalist (Abulafia) is the essence of reality, not the secrets of the Torah. Preeminently a philosophical concern, inspired by Maimonides’ thought, this knowledge is nevertheless achieved by combining letters, an approach to language that differs from the more conventional understanding of it in philosophical ways of thought.”

–Moshe Idel, “Revelation and the ‘Crisis of Tradition’ in Kabbalah,” in Andreas B. Kilcher, Constructing Tradition: Means and Myths of Transmission in Western Esotericism. Pg. 259.