Is there a source of magical powers and witchcraft? Can you be a monotheist and practice witchcraft?
Stay tuned to find out.
Hello everyone. I’m Angela and welcome to my symposium.
I’m a Ph.D. and a university lecturer, and this is your online resource for the academic study of magick, witchcraft, paganism, shamanism, esotericism, and related currents.
Today we will talk about a specific concept from Yehezkel Kaufmann’s book called ‘The Religion of Israel’, and this concept is that of a metadivine realm as the source of magic. But let’s start from the beginning, shall we?
In analysing the religion of the Israelites, at the time of the redaction of the Hebrew Bible, Kaufman was trying to understand how come there was such a strong monotheistic, theological underpinning to the Hebrew Bible and, in contrast with fellow scholars of the time, he didn’t quite believe that there was an evolution from polytheism, which is believing in multiple gods to henotheism or monolatry which is preferring one god over many but still believing in the existence of the others, to monotheism, which is the belief that there is only one god. Although this was the most popular understanding of this evolution at the time and it was seen, in fact, as an evolution – Kaufman said that it was instead a revolution, a break, basically, because as he said monotheism and polytheism uphold two completely different worldviews.
The worldview of monotheism is that of a transcendent God, a God that has created everything but then stays outside of the creation. Whereas in polytheistic pagan traditions you have the idea that gods are not the ultimate creators but they are inhabitants of a different realm of reality, which is still in relation to the realm of reality where human beings live. They are also part of the creation and that is because, according to Kaufman’s theory, what we see in Pagan religious traditions is the existence of a metadivine realm.
So since gods are not the creators of everything that exists and since there is the chance for human beings to enter in contact with gods and with deities this underlies, according to Kaufman, the existence of this meta dimension, which is the source from which both deities and human beings and everything that exist emerged. This metadivine realm represents the source for the divine, the human, and everything in the manifested world as well as the limitations of what both human beings, and deities can do. It may be seen as a demiurgic state, not a demiurge as an entity but rather a demiurgic realm, so to speak. And the nature of this metadivine realm would also change depending on the Pagan tradition.
Interestingly, according to Kaufman’s theory, positing the idea of a metadivine realm implies a few consequences. One being that gods are not the source of all. That gods are limited. That there are fluid and permeable boundaries between gods and humans. That the will of the gods is not absolute and different gods can contradict each other and have contrasting agendas. Also, Gods can be both good and evil and different gods specialize in different crafts or knowledge as we see in many ancient pagan traditions. We can also see gods die and be reborn and this is evidenced by the numerous cosmogonies and theogonies that we see in the past.
Another aspect that we have in pagan, polytheistic religions, as a consequence of positing a meta-divine realm, is something called apotheosis which means that humans can ascend to the level of gods. But most importantly for us, since we are interested in magic, is that having a metadivine realm and having this worldview allows for magic to exist. Magic, in this view of the world, in this belief system, is possible. Because since this metadivine realm is the source of everything and the source of the gods and it is this permeable dimension and fabric that is embedded in everything and being the source of all of gods and humans and also putting in religion everything that is in the creation. This allows for human beings to tap into this primordial source and by tapping into this primordial source they can both ask for help by interacting with the deities, with the gods, or just by channelling and utilizing this source, the source, and the energy, we may say, of this metadivine realm. Interestingly, in Kaufman’s theory, even the concept of salvation is linked to magic when you don’t have one omnipotent, omniscient god creator but many gods which stem from the metadivine realm, just as human beings do. Salvation can be attained through the practice of magic, which puts you in connection with that metadivine realm which has created you, as part of the creation, and from gnosis, from a knowledge that is not just an intellectual knowledge but a knowledge of a higher nature.
This core element of the metadivine realm, that we find in pagan religions, according to Kaufman, is not found at all in a monotheistic worldview – which is the one held by the Judeo-Christian religions. Because here you have only one God and he doesn’t emerge from any pre-existing realm. Nothing is prior to him. God is unlimited, ageless, eternal, transcends nature, and this creates a stark boundary between God and his creation. Magic, therefore, in a monotheistic outlook, in a monotheistic belief system, is useless really because the word is the de-divinised – is not divine any more and God cannot be manipulated or accessed by human beings. So from a philosophical point of view we can say that magic is, really, not part of a monotheistic outlook on the world and on reality and it doesn’t really fit with a monotheistic conceptualization of God and everything that derives from it.
However, as I have said in a previous video, there is a stark difference between institutionalized religions and lived religions and even though, in theory, some things may be contradictory, in practice human beings tend to include contradictions in their practice. So if we were to answer, based on Kaufman’s theory, what can we conclude?
Can people, who follow, or believers of a monotheistic religion tap into that metadivine realm?
Or can they? Well, based on what Kaufman says, they cannot. Just because it is not really part of their belief system. Because their conceptualization of god and their conceptualization of the world does not really allow for human beings to permeate within the fabric of reality in a way to access the source of it all and enter in communication with the gods. That being said, those who believe in a monotheistic, Judeo-Christian religion quite often don’t stick by what the theology of their religion says on paper. And here is a degree of individualization in how those beliefs are integrated in the daily life and in all the other beliefs that the specific person holds. For instance, there are many Catholics in Italy, including the vernacular healers that were part of my field study, that do believe in the power of saints, for instance. And that human beings, that people can interact with them in order to gain, what can be considered to be magical power. So if Kaufman were to analyse this behaviour, for instance, he would perhaps say that they are still maintaining the underlying idea that a metadivine realm exists and, in this case, it would be manifested through the saints. But, as always, religious matters are quite complex and the complexity can hardly be answered in one straightforward way.
To conclude, we can say that, according to Kaufman, there is a stark difference between the worldview held by polytheistic religions and the worldview held by monotheistic religions. That polytheistic religions have this underlying idea, this core idea, of a metadivine realm which is the source of everything in creation and also allows for a permeability between the different realms of reality and allows also, for human beings to tap into this source of creative power as well as you permeate the metal divine realm to enter in contact with deities. And this metadivine realm, as a result, is what feeds and makes magic possible. This is, however, not existent in a monotheistic worldview and this means that magic is not contemplated as the world is disenchanted and has no direct connection to either the source of creative power nor to God himself which, in this case, is the source of it all and transcends it all.
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REFERENCES
‘The Religion of Israel’ by Yehezkel Kaufmann.