"The Way of G-d"
Part 3: "The Soul, Inspiration, Prophecy, and the Supernatural"
Chapter 2: "Theurgy"
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We'll now address a subject termed "theurgy', which is the art of affecting
change in the world through the recitation of Divine names and the like. We
won't be divulging the process itself, since it's only for holy souls and
their initiates. What we will do, though, will be to explain how such
things are possible, and the hope is that that will give us insight into
the powers of the holy as well as in The Holy One who hears their pleas.
But we'll have to review a few things beforehand to put a largely unknown
phenomenon into perspective.
If you recall, we said early on that transcendent forces in the Heavens
form the backdrop of everything on earth (1:5:3), and that the lot of them
are arranged in a specific order with particular roles. Recall as well that
we pointed out that there are distinct transcendent forces behind evil, too
(1:5:8). And finally, recall that we depicted the transcendent forces as
"the sublime and ethereal counterparts" of things (1:5:2); we underscored
the point that material things are thus mere projections, physical
manifestations, and offshoots of those transcendent forces; and we noted
that reality actually lies in that transcendent realm.
It's also important to know that it's there, in the "backgound", where it's
decided what's to go on in our world, based on our general and specific
needs. And that G-d has seen to it that the transcendant forces affect
specific changes down here by being connected to them through a chain of
fixed and orderly spiritual phenomena that start far back and reach all the
way down (and back again).
Let's now go on from there.
This series is dedicated to the memory of Yitzchak Hehrsh ben Daniel,
and Sarah Rivka bas Yaakov Dovid.
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