Q&A: Powers of Kabbalists
Powers of Kabbalists
Question
Hello, honored Rabbi,
As is well known, in your approach you always choose to examine claims in a scientific way, always looking for what science has to say in relation to them.
I have a question that occupies me a great deal, and I don't know what science has to say about it.
What do you think about rabbis and kabbalists who have "powers" and know how to say things that seem unexplained?
For example, the X-Ray Rabbi — a rabbi who can diagnose and identify illnesses and problems just by looking at a person.
Or Rabbi Barbi — a rabbi who knows things about you without your having told him anything, and can mention the names of people or family members close to you who are experiencing problems.
Of course, all of this is in the realm of stories, but I don't see a reason to dismiss stories from a reliable source with no interest in lying.
For example, I have a close friend, not religious, who went to one of these kabbalists.
He says that even before he told the rabbi why he had come, the rabbi knew how to tell him the names of the people who had the problem (the ones because of whom he came to the rabbi).
The rabbi was able to mention people's names, describe the problems, all without any prior conversation or advance knowledge.
I would be glad to hear whether you know of a sufficiently logical and rational explanation for this phenomenon.
Answer
First, I really do not think that everything can or should be examined scientifically. There are questions that are not accessible to science, such as the existence of God.
I am very skeptical about such phenomena, although of course I cannot categorically rule out the possibility. Usually this is nonsense and deception.
I do not bother looking for explanations as long as I have not examined the case and the evidence. The presumption is that this is nonsense until proven otherwise, since there are many ways to mislead people.
Discussion on Answer
I don't think so. Even if you hold a meeting, that doesn't mean there's no need to check. You need to interview people and examine the situation in order to make sure there were no mistakes in understanding it and no fraud. It is also very advisable to check other cases. To reach a conclusion on a question like this requires a very serious investigation, and I have no motivation whatsoever to conduct it.
Who is Rabbi Barbi? I'd be glad to get to know him. In general I'm looking for people in our generation with this kind of sight. Can you write to me? Giladstn@gmail.com
You can read in the books of Niv Hadar (and briefly also in "A Lamp in the Pupil of the Night," if I remember correctly, under the entry "cold reading") about the range of professional methods used to mislead questioners.
The "One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge" (see Wikipedia) proves that nobody can prove such powers.
And there have already been enough people who seemed to have convincing proof of such powers, and in the end it was shown that they too were frauds (Uri Geller, William Roy [see English Wikipedia]).
I think that in order to examine the phenomenon, you have to experience it.
If you're already starting from the assumption that usually it's nonsense and deception, the only way is to verify that with him directly.
In such a meeting there would be no need to examine testimonies and cases, because it would come firsthand, face to face.
What do you think?