Miracles and Sorcery

[dauer]

I just picked up Magic of the Ordinary: Recovering the Shamanic in Judaism by Rabbi Gershon Winkler for the first time in a while. One of the first things I came across where I left my previous bookmark is this:

"Bottom line, whether a supernatural act is considered sorcery or miracle is determined not by the Bible but by the politics of organized religion."

He goes further to place value on sorcery (he defines sorcery as a supernatural event that includes mortal intervention) and distinguish between bad and good sorcery.

In this thread I'm mainly concerned with the trend Reb Gershon sees in how supernatural acts are categorized. Do you think that he is correct, that it's largely due to politics? Why do you think sorcery has been demonized in many religions? What are some examples of sorcery (based on Reb Gershon's definition) that you can think of which occur within religions that take issue with sorcery?

edit: For further clarity, according to reb gershon:

good sorcery: "channeling of supernal powers to heal, to uplift, and to do so with the awareness that the Creator is the ultimate source of all those feats and of whether they are effective or not"

bad sorcery: "the misuse of supernal powers to take advantage of people and to intimidate them"

I would challenge some of his definition for good sorcery as being too specific (though understandable if specifically meant within a jewish context) and I would encourage anyone who feels the desire to pick apart his definitions to please do so.

 

[Dondi]

Aside from the various warnings in the Hebrew Scriptures in connection with the word (I'm assume the root 'kashaph' is the one in question) in passages such as Exodus 22:18, Deut. 18:10, and Mal. 3:5, one would have to examine the reasoning behind such prohibitions, why the practiced is banned, and then decide whether the practice is indeed beneficial despite clear warnings against it.

"Bottom line, whether a supernatural act is considered sorcery or miracle is determined not by the Bible but by the politics of organized religion."

I'm not sure what the Rabbi is getting at by "the politics of organized religion" here. Is he still speaking from a Jewish perspective or in general terms? Certainly, Judaism is an organized religion, but by what policies have been set up to make the determination?

At any rate, would it not be rather more accurate to classify a miracle as that which is performed by the power of Divine origin and that sorcery is that which is performed by the powers not of Divine origin? Wasn't this the case of Moses before Pharoah's court? That while the magicians of Pharoah emulated the feats Moses performed, they were limited to a point where they could not repeat the feats?

 

[dauer]

Dondi,

I think he's speaking from a Jewish perspective of general religion. He has a bit of a gripe with the Christian church which he sees as something that's had a negative influence on the way some of these texts came to be interpreted. Early on he compares the negative stereotypes related to witches to those related to Jews as propagated during certain periods of time by the Church.

There are a lot of examples in Jewish writing that fit his definition of good sorcery. He references two examples involving Pinchas ben Ya'ir. In one case he splits rivers and in another resurrects the drowned daughter of a local well digger. I'm not familiar with those examples but I do know of others. He goes further to also include some of the stories involving Jesus like walking on water and the resurrection of Lazarus. By political he is saying that for a given religion, the sorcery (by his definition) within the religion is going to be called a miracle while the stuff happening outside of it is going to be demonized.

At any rate, would it not be rather more accurate to classify a miracle as that which is performed by the power of Divine origin and that sorcery is that which is performed by the powers not of Divine origin? Wasn't this the case of Moses before Pharoah's court? That while the magicians of Pharoah emulated the feats Moses performed, they were limited to a point where they could not repeat the feats?

Well I think that's some of what he's getting at, is the demonization of the term sorcery. It's a good way to distinguish between those acts that involve human intervention and those that don't at all. I don't think sorcery is less of a miracle, but I think sorcery is more descriptive. He actually uses the very example you gave because it fits his definition of good sorcery. He goes on further in the book to thoroughly cover those places in the Torah and other Jewish literature that have at times been interpreted as against sorcery, period, rather than against more specific practices.

 

[path_of_one]

I think it's an interesting concept he brings up, and a valid one. The problem is in the definitions.

In most societies, witchcraft and sorcery is considered to be with malicious intent, and therefore witches and sorcerers are typically feared. This can be contrasted with shamans and the like that use supernatural powers for good intentions. So, in many traditional societies and the anthropological definitions, sorcery is bad but its good equivalent would be called something else. For the sake of discussion, in anthropology, witchcraft was seen as a result of innate properties in the witch (i.e., no spells, charms, etc. necessary) and sorcery was seen as a result of certain means and was learned (i.e., with incantations, spells, etc.). Most societies had good and bad forms of magic that depended primarily on the people's intentions and not the means. Thus, for example, in Voodoo it is perfectly acceptable and desireable to be possessed by the spirits ("ridden" by the spirits) but becoming a bokor (one who deals with creating zombies and the like) is seen as bad.

I think these definitions aren't as useful in a modern context because the meaning has shifted. Many in the Western world, due to the media and a revival of witchcraft, now perceive "black" and "white" magic/witchcraft/etc. or something similar- that is, they divorce the means from the intent in a different way and use different words to describe it. In modern magic-oriented communities in the first world, there are also some who categorize practitioners based on the means. There is not a lot of agreement on definitions. For example, I've run across those who see "black" magic as being due to bad intent, and others that think it can be used for good intent but it is using the powers of chaos. On top of black and white, there are people who divide magics into other means-based categories- elemental magic, faery magic, psion, nature magic, etc. Some divide based by point or founder of origin- Italian witchcraft, Gardernian Wicca, Alexandrian Wicca, etc. You have chaos magic in which people claim to use anything that consistently works. You have flowing magic in which people claim to naturally do energy work without any tradition or means whatsoever. In short, magic and witchcraft is a crazy world when it comes to defining stuff.

I think most of the historical and contemporary Christian problem with magic in general (which comes out as its problem with New Age, modern witchcraft, etc.) has been based on misreading the OT scriptures. The actual issues discussed in the OT are much more specific in the Hebrew than in the English- and so from what I've read, when the English Bible says "sorcery," the Hebrew meant something much more specific and based on intent- for example, at times, "poisoning."

However, if you want to control a lot of people (and the Christian church was long associated with ruling elite in Europe), it is best not to have a bunch of independent magicians running around with their own ideologies (generally based on theory and experimentation), and performing miracles they claim are due to faeries or Pagan gods or goddesses and such. Best to keep that under wraps. So sorcery and witchcraft as a whole become demonised, and the church the only valid point of entry to the supernatural and the miraculous.

So, in short-- yes, I think he's right. I think it is primarily political motivation that causes an organized religion to demonize magic.

In reality, I think it is about intent and means. Magic is another way to meet a goal; it's just another kind of action. I don't think there is a real boundary between natural and supernatural. So, intent to harm or to serve self in a selfish, greedy way is bad whether your action is through conventional means (using money, power, whatever) or magical means (direct manifestation of will/focus, whatever the means). Intent to serve God/the Divine and to heal others is good, whether through regular action or magic. One caveat- using questionable means to try to effect good generally tampers the intent. So, for example, I argue that using war to gain peace doesn't work- not on a spiritual level, and obviously (from history) not on a physical level. Likewise, to use questionable means magically also taints intent.

Now what "questionable means" is, well, that is a whole other issue and one likely to inspire controversy, whether discussing ordinary, mundane action or magical action.