"The Way of G-d"

Part 3: "The Soul, Inspiration, Prophecy, and the Supernatural"

Chapter 2: "Theurgy"

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As we'd pointed out, those who practice theurgy can do two astounding things. They can affect changes in the world by supernatural means, and they can commune with angels and other spiritual entities and experience insights that are ordinarily beyond their native abilities. They can even experience Divine revelation and prophecy at times (see 3:2:5), which is the subject of our next chapter.

But as we indicated last time as well, such a person could likewise commune with certain dark and wretched forces by sounding certain incantations that would pollute their being. So one would obviously have to know what he or she is doing to avoid the dangers inherent to that. People who commune with the dead or practice other forbidden occult acts such as calling upon demons fall into this category. (Let it be said, though, that there are very few people in our day and age if any who truly practice this, and that the Torah utterly prohibits us from trying).

In point of fact, nothing separates a person from G-d more than the latter practices. For they're derived from the forces of evil (see 1:5:8). G-d does nonetheless allow them to be effective when the correct processes are followed, just as He allows other evil and wrongful things to go on.

And finally, it's said that these practices are even powerful enough to override the actions of angels that oversee nature and transmit G-d's emanations. Still-and-all they do have their limitations and can of course be overridden by G-d's explicit decree (when, for example, He protects His holy ones).

This series is dedicated to the memory of Yitzchak Hehrsh ben Daniel, and Sarah Rivka bas Yaakov Dovid.

Copyright © 2003 by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman and torah.org

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