R. Caro's mystical diary was recast by the editors before it was published in the form of a kabbalistic-homiletical commentary on the Pentateuch. Maggid Mesharim is a major source for a better knowledge of the state of the Kabbalah in the period after the expulsion from Spain and before the great revival in Safed of the new Kabbalah associated with the name of R. Isaac Luria. While not creating a new kabbalistic system or synthesizing earlier doctrines, R. Caro's diary throws much light on contemporary pre-Lurianic kabbalistic discussions, especially the doctrine of the Shekhinah and of the intermediary realms of being between the world of Azilut and the lower worlds.