A closer look

Abulafia didn't care about magical amulets; he treated the Hebrew language like cryptographic source code. His method, Tzeruf, involved chanting seemingly nonsensical vowel and consonant combinations in rhythm with breath and specific head movements, effectively overloading the brain's default mode network. It worked so well he got completely high on the divine name, hiked to Rome to convert the Pope, and only survived because the Pope mysteriously died the night before Abulafia's execution.