After the passing of a generation of mystics and the disappearance of the Zohar, a dark age of Kabbalah ensues.
As part of his series “Intro to Kabbalah”, Rabbi Yossi Paltiel describes the small trickle of mystics who carried the torch of kabbalah from the times of the Rashbi until the re-emergence of the Zohar. He explains how Jewish philosophy emerged in the absence of extensive kabbalistic knowledge during that time and the conflicts that developed over the drastic differences between mysticism and philosophy.