Kabbalah And Witchcraft @kabbalisticwitch - Tumblr Blog

Important post

I was getting suspicions but now I'm very 100% sure that most of this website's userbase hates Palestinians and not passively. I'm now fully 100% comprehending that the vast majority of this website's userbase passes by any mention of Palestinians and seethes to their core and the only reason little of it came out was because you thought there might be social repercussions for attacking Palestinians in our time of need. All it took was an easily debunkable false accusation to get people to attack people undergoing genocide as well as a genocide survivor, and now he's been stopped from doing the work he has spent months doing. I will not allow this experience to go undocumented or forgotten. Those who partook in the harassment know what they've done and the unspeakable repurcussions of it. I expected this honestly, because that is exactly what happened to BLM and other Black rights activists since 2014; a cycle of unbelievable praise before horrendous abuse and harassment once they stopped being deified. I also saw the way people treated Moataz Azaiza after he evacuated Ghazzah, and expected the same to happen to Ahmed, who also survived unspeakable things for months in an accelerated genocide, and got harassed and attacked by the THOUSANDS on tumblr after this harassment campaign was put out. I will not forgive any one involved, especially not for what they've done to Ahmed.

Here's a collection of links to posts about the issue in the past couple of days, in chronological order I think. And under the cut will be screenshots of the initial post that I saw that brought this to my attention.

[Post 1] [Post 2] [Post 3] [Post 4] [Post 5]

[Post 6] [Post 7] [Post 8] [Post 9] [Post 10]

[Post 11] [Post 12] Edit: forgot one [Post 13].

These links are absolutely non-exhaustive and there's more shit these people have said that I don't have the patience to go collect and link here.

el-shab-hussein

If you have ever benefitted from my or another Palestinian blogger's posts, especially but not limited to my and nabulsi's vetted fundraiser list, reblog this post. The baseless accusations got thousands of notes, and the damage will not be undone if this doesn't reach the people who got misinformed.

socialistsephardi

Sorry that this is more of a personal post than what I usually post here, but I get heated about this every time I encounter it so lemme say it clear:

Lilith is a piece of medieval Jewish mysticism. If you aren’t Jewish, you do not know or understand Lilith. Even if you are Jewish, you shouldn’t invoke Lilith at all.

I’m a Jewish witch and I am sooo tired of these appropriative Christian mofos trying to claim Lilith. Lilith doesn’t exist in Christianity. Lilith is part of a closed section of Judaism that not even most Jews are willing to dig through. Lilith does nothing besides cause illness, disability, and child death. She is not something for you to create feminist Christian takes from. She is not a night goddess or whatever the fuck y’all claim. She is the mother of shaydim, her great action was attempting to castrate humanity, and all she does since that moment is cause infant mortality, blindness, and developmental infertility. Christians and culturally Christian witches stop invoking beings that you don’t have the cultural background to understand.

yiddishknights

Library of Congress Releases Newly Digitized Hebrew Manuscripts Collection of 230 Manuscripts Includes a 14th Century Collection of Responsa

Some exciting news: the U.S. Library of Congress has digitized a collection of 230 Jewish manuscripts "from the 10th through the 20th centuries, including responsa or rabbinic decisions and commentary, poetry, Jewish magic, and folk medicine." The languages represented include Hebrew, Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-Persian, and Yiddish.

creature-wizard

The main reason it's important to be at least somewhat literate in historical paganism and folk magic isn't so you can make your own practice exactly like it; it's to be able to recognize when someone is making historically inaccurate claims, because "asserting made-up shit about history as real fact" is a sign you're possibly looking at a cult and/or scam.

For the same reason, it's a good idea to be somewhat literate in pop culture media. Because being able to look at something a person is trying to pass off as Genuine Ancient Tradition or something and recognize that it's nothing like anything people actually believed or did back in Ye Olden Times but it sure as heck resembles something from a popular TV show or TTRPG is a valuable discernment skill.

quantumpsychotic

discodeerdiary

This makes so much more sense than "they canceled your favorite show because you weren't posting hard enough"

will-o-the-witch

Jewish Angel Work

I don't see a bunch of writing about angel work in general, and what I do find is often heavily Christianized! I wanted to talk about what angel work can look like from a Jewish perspective.

(Gentiles may interact and enjoy, but understand that this is for educational purposes and not an invitation to appropriate! 🤍)

A Jewish-Specific Perspective

Judaism views angels in ways other traditions may not share! Some examples:

Angels aren't former humans. They are their own distinct beings just like demons, cows, land spirits and butterflies. People who pass away, even children, are not considered "angels returning home." These angels have specific forms and looks depending on the type, some more humanoid than others.

Angels don't have free will. This does not mean they are held hostage or can't have their own personalities, but their will is an extension of HaShem's Will, serving a specific role in making that Will manifest. Kind of like employees in a corporation doing their tasks!

They don't have names. Or at least, they don't have names we're supposed to know or ask for. They may be incomprehensible to humans, or maintaining a level of anonymity as to not distract from HaShem. Either way, asking for a name is often discouraged in traditional texts.

They AREN'T all here to help you. While it all serves a Divine Will and is therefore Good in the grand scheme of things, many angels serve completely neutral functions from a human perspective. Some could even be considered harmful to humans, the most prominent example being HaSatan. (Even still, HaSatan isn't seen as a true villain. He's just doing his job.)

Some of them are ONLY here to help you! Historical Rabbis were big on the concept of guardian angels. The Talmud says "Every blade of grass has its Angel that bends over it and whispers, 'Grow, grow.'" (Midrash Rabba, Bereshit 10:6.) Every living creature, including you, has a guardian angel to help you along your path. Some translations say the angels hit the grass, and that's not the only story of angels smacking things, so that guidance isn't always gentle, but it's always in the right direction.

Types of Angel Work

Spirit guides. Like mentioned above, guardian angels can help encourage you to "Grow! Grow!" and keep you on a path in line with spiritual health and lovingkindness.

Communing with HaShem. Gd is extremely esoteric. Angels help us send and recieve messages in an easier-to-conceptualize way! Meditation and prayer can also play into this. Beyond every-day applications, angels can also appear unexpectedly with important messages.

Communicating with other spirits. As angels are often messengers, I also think it's helpful to call upon their aid when working with other spirits!

Working with angels of various functions. Modern day Rabbis often marry angelic theology with scientific phenomena, with angels overseeing the process. By that extent, we could ask those angels for help/guidance when relevant!

Protection. Psalm 91, often recited for protection, depicts HaShem commanding angels on your behalf to guard you in all ways. One bedtime prayer names the four archangels to surround us.

Shalom Aleichem is traditionally sung on Friday nights before Shabbat dinner. It invites angels of peace to basically come and hang out with us during shabbat, then to leave in peace once shabbat is over. Many arrangements also make a good lullaby.

Other Notes

Metatron (מֶטָטְרוֹן) is a specifically-Jewish angel who gets appropriated a lot in spiritual circles. He does not appear in the Tanakh, but is mentioned in the Talmud and largely fleshed out in kabbalistic literature! (Islamic literature does mention him by different name, ميططرون, Mitatrun/Mitatrush. Solidarity.)Lots of people recognize Lilith as closed, but the same attention hasn't been given to Metatron. He's a very complex and ambiguous figure worth a whole post of his own so I won't get into it here!

This post is by no means comprehensive! This is just a very "quick" overview of a very rich field of study.

Further Study

On My Right Michael, On My Left Gabriel: Angels in Ancient Jewish Culture-- Mika Ahuvia

A Gathering of Angels: Angels in Jewish Life and Literature-- Morris B. Margolies

Ascending Jacob's Ladder: Jewish Views of Angels, Demons, and Evil Spirits-- Ronald H. Isaacs

will-o-the-witch

You joke but I 100% did this for my law school finals

a-charaid

The T in trans stands for tzitzit

magnetothemagnificent

[id: three colourless drawings of three different people on a blue background.

The first drawing is a waist-up drawing of a thin shirtless person with top surgery scars leaning forward and clasping their hands while looking to the side. A tallit katan is draped over their shoulders and around their neck. They have thick dark curly hair and a stubble, and are wearing a Kippah and a hamsa earring.

The second drawing is a thigh-up drawing of a chubby shirtless person with top surgery scars. They are leaning forward and smiling. They are wearing a tallit katan. Their hair is styled in thick peyot and they are wearing a black kippah.

The third drawing is a waist-up drawing of person putting on Tefillin. They are wearing a button-down shirt and a tallit katan over their shirt. A tallit gadol is draped over their shoulders. They are holding out their left arm and wrapping Tefillin straps around it. They have long straight hair and are wearing a Kippah. ]]

I just started wearing tzizit full-time this Elul…..this speaks to me so much

tikkunolamorgtfo

It seems simple. If you have hurt another person, you ought to apologize. You also ought to try to fix what you broke. If another person hur

I was reading some quotes on Teshuvah and found one I liked:

“Forgiveness and change are elusive and, like grief, take a very long time to process and incorporate into our life. I have learned to think just a little more before I speak and consider the effect I have on other people. The world is messy and hard and hurtful. Teshuvah (repentance) is a brave and hopeful task and, even when incomplete, it is worth something.”

thejewitches

The History of Book of Shadows

As many practitioners, occultists & witches work to decentralize and remove Wicca from their practices, one element that often remains is the term “Book of Shadows”.

Because of the homogenization of Wicca & witchcraft, particularly within pop culture, the term BoS has become synonymized with witchcraft as a whole. But let’s look at the origins of the term & how it even made its way into Wicca.

Gerald Gardner, before his foray in ‘creating’ a religion, was a novelist. According to some, he merely published under the guise of fiction due to the laws regarding witchcraft at the time, however; Others believe a narrative more similar to that of L Ron Hubbard’s failed foray into fiction. His early novel serves as a crystallization of the evolution of his beliefs before Wicca and as such: there is no trace of the term Book of Shadows. Doreen Valiente, who’d become a High Priestess of Wicca, illuminates why this is. Gardner only discovered the term in 1949 because of ‘The Occult Observer’. Published within Volume I, Number 3 of the Occult Observer was Kashmiri palmist Mir Bashir’s article “The Book of Shadows”

His article delved into a Sanskrit text known as The Book of Shadows. The publisher of the magazine was the very same as the publisher of Gardner’s fiction. Advertised within the same magazine was Gardner’s novel, High Magic’s Aid, written under the pen name, Scire.

The Book of Shadows that Bashir writes of is a Sanskrit text that discusses divination using ones shadow and the article follows Bashir and a friend as they travel to visit a pundit who performs said divination using his duplicate of the original Book of Shadows .If you’re interested in reading about the Book of Shadows, you can find a PDF version of the Occult Observer here, where you can read Bashir’s account.

Soon after his novel is advertised in the same magazine that publishes the article on the BOS, Gardner names his book of rites and magic “The Book of Shadows”. Before this, Valiente notes it was very rarely referred to as “The Black Book” within his fiction, but never the a Book of Shadows.

Gardner’s own BoS, she notes, was filled with direct plagiarism from older magical grimoires, as well as the works of Crowley, Masonic rites, & more. When confronted by Valiente regarding how much of his work was blatantly copied from Crowley, with whom Valiente looked upon with disdain, Gardner said, “well, if you think you can do any better, go ahead”—which she did. Her version erases much of Crowley’s influence but takes influence from other writings.

Gardner’s BoS was not what we see today: a personal journal filled with knowledge and documentation of rituals specific to the practitioner, but belonged to the Coven, controlled by the High Priest/Priestess, from which members could at times copy, depending on the coven.

This distinct evolution into a personal journal is sharply divided open, as others conflate it with ‘grimoire’, a book of spells/magic. This evolution of what the term means has, in many ways, shifted how the term is viewed at all within spiritual spaces.

Many contemporary witches/pagans distinguish between the two by stating that a BoS is a personal journal while a grimoire is a textbook of descriptions, spells, rituals & the like, with no personal documentation/thoughts/etc. But this is seemingly subjectively used.

We can argue the 'definition’ as provided by the dictionary, of course, but we must also acknowledge how genuine human use varies from dictionary definitions. Book of Shadows has become a term that people expect to hear from spiritualists–regardless of their background

The 'baseline’ of Wicca & Wicca-based practices as the 'standard’ of witchcraft means that even those who do not ever intend to interact with Wicca do so by immersion–simply being in modern 'witch’ spaces means constant contact. And we are not guilt-free either–in the early days of Jewitches, in order to find stability within a community that was, and is, uncomfortable with our manner of magic, we infrequently used the term BoS, thinking it would be an easier way to communicate–but it was never right.

Read more: The Occult Observer, PDF version

Doreen Valiente’s The Rebirth of Witchcraft (1989)

hazel2468

“No, it’s not okay that modern occultism has appropriated and bastardized Kabbalah, but-”

SO WHY DO Y’ALL KEEP DOING IT?

You just SAID it isn’t okay. You KNOW it’s wrong. You know it’s a fucking disrespectful thing, it’s taking a closed culture’s sacred text and fucking with it. You just admitted. That you know it’s wrong.

So why do you keep doing it?

If you know it’s wrong, why not just… Stop? There are SO MANY open practices to pull from. SO MANY other options for you. You do not need to study Kabbalah to read Tarot. You do not need to worship Lilith to do spirit work. You have. SO MANY OPTIONS.

White goysche witches who respond to Jews calling out the theft of our culture, religion, and practice with “It’s not okay, but-” Fuck you.

It’s not okay. Why is it okay for you to keep doing it?

will-o-the-witch

Sharing Fake Hebrew with Goyiche Kabbalists to See If They Notice

Jewish mysticism has been heavily fetishized and appropriated by the occult community at large. This highly-complex subject is often passed around between goyiche practitioners with little to no cultural/academic understanding of what they're working with. Instead of learning through the proper channels, they learn from widely-antisemitic historical occultists who also didn't learn through the proper channels. Despite never bothering to learn how to speak, read, or understand Hebrew, many will tout it as an inherently mystical language carrying Ancient Jewish Truths in it and use it on everything. To make a long story short, it's cultural appropriation and antisemitism. So my Jewish ass decided to fuck around.

hazel2468

Hot take but if you’re a fucking goy and you’re telling actual fucking Jews that we’re WRONG about Lilith, a being specific to our texts and cultures (and shockingly, no, Christians stealing her and later all of these new age assholes doing the same to make her their Badass Feminist Goddess doesn’t change the fact that Lilith is exclusive to Jewish texts and is OURS), you’re an antisemitic asshole.

Full stop. It is antisemitic, period. To tell Jews that we do not know about our own culture and texts, to ignore us when we tell you that this is something that is OURS, to go after Jews who correct your antisemitic bigoted asses when we say that Lilith isn’t something for you to put your little witchy goy hands all over.

I would say that I’m disappointed to see so many “progressive” and “liberal” witches doing this shit, but y’all have been doing this to Jewish culture and mysticism, Black culture, and Indigenous cultures for fucking forever so. I expect it by now.

socialistsephardi

Sorry that this is more of a personal post than what I usually post here, but I get heated about this every time I encounter it so lemme say it clear:

Lilith is a piece of medieval Jewish mysticism. If you aren’t Jewish, you do not know or understand Lilith. Even if you are Jewish, you shouldn’t invoke Lilith at all.

I’m a Jewish witch and I am sooo tired of these appropriative Christian mofos trying to claim Lilith. Lilith doesn’t exist in Christianity. Lilith is part of a closed section of Judaism that not even most Jews are willing to dig through. Lilith does nothing besides cause illness, disability, and child death. She is not something for you to create feminist Christian takes from. She is not a night goddess or whatever the fuck y’all claim. She is the mother of shaydim, her great action was attempting to castrate humanity, and all she does since that moment is cause infant mortality, blindness, and developmental infertility. Christians and culturally Christian witches stop invoking beings that you don’t have the cultural background to understand.

will-o-the-witch

There's been a lot of hubbub lately about Kabbalah being a "closed" practice, and saying that Christians/Pagans/other Gentiles shouldn't touch it because they don't know what they're doing. Anyway, local Jew here to share a helpful guide all about how to practice Kabbalah as a Gentile! Enjoy. :)

hazel2468

Really wish people on the witchy side of the internet would learn that people from a closed culture/closed practice telling folks not to fucking appropriate their CLOSED practices isn’t fucking “gatekeeping”.

It’s you stepping over a damn line and being disrespectful and then being unable to handle that something isn’t for you.