Metal Merkavah Mysticism: The Perfect Antidote to Fake Neo-Advaita Positive Unity (Sledge, 2025)

Michael Hoffman, draft started 8:15 p.m. November 26, 2025

Contents:

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Video Series: Introduction to Merkavah Mysticism and Hekhalot Literature Seminar (Sledge, Nov. 21, 2025)

Introduction to Merkavah Mysticism and Hekhalot Literature Seminar Announcement
YoutTube channel: ESOTERICA [Dr. Justin Sledge]
https://youtu.be/J8QE5Fsse1A

Videos: Merkavah Mysticism Seminar (Sledge, ESOTERICA, 2025)

YouTube playlist by Dr. Justin Sledge:
Title of playlist:
Merkavah Mysticism Seminar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8QE5Fsse1A&list=PLZ__PGORcBKxbM4y3wcYSObaUsr4guYAn
Parts 1-15+

Intro vid:
June 27, 2025
title:
Introduction to Merkavah Mysticism and Hekhalot Literature Seminar Announcement

“Hundreds of years prior to the rise of the Kabbalah, shaman-like rabbinic mystics were described as having made the terrifying and awe-inspiring descent into the Divine Palaces.

“There they met with and bypassed fearsome angels with magical codes, gained control over angelic powers, became transformed into beings of fire, gained vast wisdom and mounted the very throne of G!d to carefully measure the vast dimensions of the divine body, join in the heavenly liturgy or be transformed into beings of fire.

“These experiences and their praxes are recorded in about 50 manuscripts now known as the Hekhalot (lit. palaces) literature.

“Outside of specialists this late-classical form of (a)(de)scent mysticism is poorly understood and little appreciated.

“In this course, we will explore the foundations, social origins, myth-world, praxes and the afterlife of Merkavah Mysticism over the course of 12-14 weeks starting Sunday July 20th at 2pm EST a bit like the Agrippa seminar last year.”

Course Syllabus: To Behold the Throne: An Introduction to Merkavah Mysticism
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1URUIb_AkZGM3hXzTnPFAwQYkZf_WgL0Q9wWWqSr2ug0/edit?tab=t.0

Course Materials & Readings: Merkavah Class
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-93Z0g92p4xMTFRjk5KznFvh65oRjFAo

Merkavah Course, Part 15 of 15

video title:
Introduction to Merkavah Mysticism – 15 of 15 – The Twilight of the Merkavah
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8f7euCwchs
Nov. 21, 2025
Desc: slightly different than for Intro:

“Hundreds of years prior to the rise of the Kabbalah, shaman-like rabbinic mystics were described as having made the terrifying and awe-inspiring descent into the Divine Palaces.

“There they met with and bypassed fearsome angels with magical codes, gained control over angelic powers, became transformed into beings of fire, gained vast wisdom and mounted the very throne of G!d to carefully measure the vast dimensions of the divine body.

“These experiences and their praxes are recorded in about 50 manuscripts now known as the Hekhalot (lit. palaces) literature.

“Outside of specialists this late-classical form of (a)(de)scent mysticism is poorly understood and little appreciated.

“In this course, we will explore the foundations, social origins, myth-world, praxes and the afterlife of Merkavah Mysticism.”

Text Message Thread Wed. Nov. 26, 2025

The day before Thanksgiving. 🦃

Forbidden to Behold the Throne; Here’s How We Do It

it is strictly prohibited to behold the throne

it is customary to ignore this prohibition

here’s how to behold the throne, in a 15+ part Summer university course 4 days ago

Introduction to Merkavah Mysticism and Hekhalot Literature Seminar Announcement
YoutTube channel: ESOTERICA [Dr. Justin Sledge]
https://youtu.be/J8QE5Fsse1A

Merkavah Sledgehammer to Entrenched All-Dominant False Model, Advaita

perfect antidote & sledgehammer ⚒️💥 to the all-dominant, totally entrenched, fantasy-based Positive Advaita, false & fabricated model of “mystical experience”

partially exposed by Taves 2020 & sgc Harvard member Jeffrey Breau 2023 who reached same concl as me-independently:

Walter Stace 1960 makes a narrow model of “mystical experience” thats just Neo Advaita w/ its raft of metaphysical interp, a package deal. a particular Positive Unity phil of religious experiencing

Stace (& therefore ALL psychedelic pseudo science, based directly on Stace lineage) — and Alan Houot Masters dissert 2019 — insults & demotes Abrahamic, Relational Dualistic mysticism as inferior and amateur and failed, because resorts to “surrender” and fear

“Mysticism” marketed as unicorns & rainbows is a fake product; the ulterior motive: transnational political unity disguised as nondual Advaita Unity boundary-removal —

but Relational mysticism in Abrahamic religions deeply disagrees (& has been silenced by psychedelic pseudo science)

🦄💨🌈 💦🔫🤨

Metal mysticism & myth disproves fake pop Neo-Advaita’s coverup operation

A’s Reply: Bias Against Relational Mysticism in Favor of Westernized Advaita’s Unitive Mysticism; Theosophy’s Biased Conception of “World Religions”

“I need to find some of my papers from my graduate course, as this bias goes back to the historical origins of comparative religious studies and the influence of the Theosophy movement on the idea of “World Religions” in the 19th c.”

Disaster of the Long-Awaited Hopkins Religious Leaders 2015 Psilocybin Research

im perversely revelling in the total disaster of the long-awaited Hopkins Religious Leaders 2015 psil research:

poetic justice for the entire field & the entire related field of “theories of mystic-state enlightenment”, that wrongly made narrow Neo-Avaita (the self/other, boundary-suspension model [Positive-only Unitive]🦄💨🌈) the be-all, end-all, definitive, all-dominant model adopted wholesale hook/line/sinker by EVERY writer:

when the Hopkins paper finally flopped across the finish line a month ago, has a big Conflicts of Interest section. “science conclusions” for purchase
$$$ 🤑💰🤥👖🔥🤞
i hope to send u screengrab of that pdf section

Describes Merkavah Mysticism as Metal

effective subtitle of Dr Sledge series:
Metal Merkavah Mysticism
🤘🎸😈😱

🤘🎸😈😱

Mythology, Metal Lyrics, & Art Disprove Relevance of Unitive Mysticism

myth, acid Metal, & Merkavah, & the medieval art genre of {mushroom-trees}, confirm my centering of threat-driven fearsome boundary-crossing, against Pop Neo Avaita eg Ken Wilber (bleh) that cant get off the ground 🚫🛫
the planned, companion Hopkins article was cancelled in disgrace,
as explained to us by Michael Pollan at UCBerk a few months ago (some [of our church members] were there in person)

Michael Pollan Replied: The Bogus “Mystical Experience” Questionnaires Are Already Being Replaced by Broader, More Realistic Questionnaires

Pollan replied to my extreme/ harsh question:
“Will the bogus “mystical experience” questionnaires be replaced by broader, more realistic ones?”
“yes, theyre already working on it”

A’s Reply: More Varied Perspectives Needed in Psychedelic Research

“So clear that more varied perspectives are needed in psychedelic research”

Angels at War with the Mystics

Sledge manages to tell a consistent, useful, coherent presentation, 

despite freaky fractured sources

angels at war with the mystics

“This Myth Is Psychedelic-Styled (without Using Psychedelics)”

Sledge constantly, casually describes journeying-myth as “psy’c”

 – while claiming, “no evidence”

i say: 

sound theory interacts with the ability to discover various evidence – proved resoundingly _in general_, eg Great Canterbury Psalter 

many kinds of evidence are plentiful, from a suitably informed pov

effective theory/evidence feedback, across the broad genre of the best religious myth

not super concerned about evidence re: any one brand of such myth

Ezekiel eat scroll sweet in mouth bitter in stomach then visions

In Mythology, Ingesting Always Means Psychedelics

their rule:
u must bake ur bread urself

/ end of text message thread

Mushroom Bread 🍄‍🟫🥖

Video title:
Introduction to Merkavah Mysticism – 11 of 15 – Qualifications & Praxes of the Merkavah
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBBRSqCqKSI&t=2176s (36:16)

Dr. Justin Sledge’s YouTube series just finished, about Merkavah (Merkabah) / Hekalot (palaces) mysticism.  

In episode 11, Sledge says:

* There’s no evidence of psychedelics in the Hekalot literature.

* The only ingesting reported in the literature was bread and water. See “raven’s bread” in entheogen scholarship eg Ruck. See ergot leavening in Dan Merkur book.

* They (men; husbands) were required to bake their own bread.  The cover-story that Sledge swallows is: wife might be unclean. Real reason: keep control of psilocybin bread.

* There was no wine in this tradition.

Dr. Sledge doesn’t discuss the recipe for this bread; that’s a wide opening for the maximal entheogen theory of religion: 

Psilocybin, such as Liberty Cap (grows everywhere) doesn’t doesn’t break down at 425 degrees F (baking temp.)

Sledge simply takes for granted, that “bread” means ordinary bread – which makes no sense for the genre of altered state mythology, in which the suitable kind of ingestion is magical bread.

Assume such a magical ingredient in the Merkavah mystics’ (“descenders to the throne”) self-baked bread – now we have a workable explanation, instead of fabricating made-up explanations for how they battled with angels to behold the throne.

Sledge attempts to make the following techniques produce the same effects as high-dose psychedelics:

  • isolation
  • bathing
  • fasting

ie, a list of all academics’ usual stand-ins – ANYTHING BUT DRUGS.

If isolation and bathing and fasting produced the same effects as high-dose psychedelics, high school & college students would be using isolation and bathing instead of psychedelics.

The sensible, plausible solution, based on relatively reliable effects, is psychedelics such as Liberty Caps, more than accompanying techniques such as isolation, bathing, or “contemplative prayer” (academics’ code-word for Meditation).

Merkavah Is Mysticism, Despite Leading to Encounter with God but not Union with God

I’m alienated from Neoplatonism and apophatic theology.

Episode 1 of Merk Seminar raises the question of “Is this mysticism? If mysticism = Neoplatonism union with God, Merkavah isn’t mysticism.

The proposition that Merkavah isn’t mysticism b/c Merkavah only leads to encountering God, but not identifying with God, is patently nonsense and too narrow, arbitrarily narrow of a definition of ‘mysticism’.

My 4 diagrams of:

  • Stace model, per 1963 Walter Pahnke PhD dissertation under Tim Leary.
  • Ann Taves model in 2020 article.
  • Jeffrey Breau model in 2023 article.

Image: Ezekiel Eating Scroll

Features:

  • Weight on Right foot
  • Left hand makes the YI shape; “the hand shape”
  • Eats the open scroll
  • God’s Right hand from hidden in cloud, holds scroll.

image search
https://www.google.com/search?udm=2&q=merkavah+mysticism
https://www.google.com/search?udm=2&q=merkabah+mysticism

See Also

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Author: egodeaththeory

http://egodeath.com

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