Q&A: Spiritual Communication
Spiritual Communication
Question
Hello Rabbi,
Suppose there is a person who claims to have abilities of spiritual communication (whether with the dead, or angels, or aliens, or with the Holy One, blessed be He). Assuming these abilities are real and not made up or a hallucination, does that person violate any prohibition, for example regarding the prohibitions of a medium, a spiritist, or one who inquires of the dead? And do those who turn to him also violate these prohibitions?
Answer
I don’t think the communication itself is a prohibition, although in the language of the halakhic decisors there is room to hesitate about this. Simply speaking, the prohibition is relying on this communication, meaning asking questions and acting based on the answers. That is inquiring of the dead.
It may depend on the dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) whether there is anything real to it or not. According to Maimonides, there is nothing to it, and the prohibition is being foolish or deceiving others who are foolish. According to other medieval authorities, there is something real to it, and it is nevertheless forbidden. If that person truly thinks he has such abilities, then he does not accept Maimonides, but he can still claim that according to Maimonides he is not violating a prohibition (because the prohibition is to be foolish and believe in nonsense).
Discussion on Answer
And another question: do you think such abilities are even possible at all?
As above. I don’t think the communication itself is prohibited unless one receives advice and acts on it.
I tend to think there are no such powers, but it’s hard to determine that categorically. I also don’t think there are such entities that one can communicate with (except perhaps souls).
Assuming one does act based on the advice, under which prohibition would that fall? Spiritist? (I mean someone who communicates with entities that are not the dead)
How can you command someone not to be foolish?
The reality is that he was created foolish.
Spiritist.
You can command someone not to behave foolishly.
A fool is really completely foolish
and when he does something foolish he’s pleased with himself and thinks he did something smart…
and even boasts about it.
That’s proof that he really is completely foolish.
What does it even mean to command him to act wisely?
He’s convinced he’s acting wisely.
From what I saw online about the prohibition of a spiritist, I understood that this refers to communication for revealing the future, but suppose for the sake of discussion that the communication with those angels does not include revealing the future, just ordinary advice, or revealing wisdom—would that also count as the prohibition of a spiritist?
The advice being discussed is based on future knowledge that they have and we don’t; otherwise what added value do they have? Higher wisdom? If you are not relying on future knowledge, then perhaps this would fall under divination. It’s no different from making decisions based on seeing a black cat or clouds in the sky.
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Suppose a scientist is looking for non-orthodox methods to achieve a scientific breakthrough in his research, and suppose he turns to a spiritual communicator and gets advice from him that actually leads him to the breakthrough he was looking for. Would that involve a prohibition?
Meaning that the advice he was given comes from higher wisdom and not from revealing the future. For example, they gave him the formula that describes the laws of quantum gravity, and he tested it empirically and saw that it works.
If there is logical or scientific confirmation, it is permitted. If you are relying on the communicator himself as a source of authority, it is forbidden. It can be a source of inspiration, but not a source of authority. The same applies to turning to a communicator in order to locate missing persons. Something along these lines appears in the topic in Sanhedrin 30a and the commentators regarding reliance on dreams.
Would it be permitted for the owner of a gas and oil exploration company to focus his company’s search by using a spiritual communicator? Or is that already more in the category of divination?
That is, suppose the company found several sites where scientific tests indicate there is potential, but every test of a site costs a lot of money, so in order to narrow the search among the sites that science identified as having potential, they turned to a spiritual communicator. If they hadn’t turned to one, they would simply have had to choose one of the potential sites at random. So turning to the communicator cannot hurt, only help if the communicator does have abilities.
There is seemingly room to be lenient, because in the end there will either be confirmation for the communication or there won’t be. But it seems to me one should be stringent, because the decision itself is made without that confirmation and before it.
A question in this context:
Suppose something passes through my mind that causes me to believe 100% that I managed to see the future, but I do not “feel” that it came in any way from God.
Am I allowed to relate to it and act according to that feeling?
Is there even a prohibition on the person himself in the area of a spiritist and so on (assuming of course that such things exist)?
I don’t think so. People have intuitions, and they are allowed to use them.
But here the case is a bit different. We all have feelings; I’m talking about something like what you described in the series on mysticism, a feeling that I can’t convey to others (as opposed to intuition, where we all more or less know what it feels like).
For example: a vision of the lottery numbers—again and again I discover “in my mind’s eye” what the numbers are.
Would I in such a situation be allowed at all to submit a ticket?
I assume that a person who came to me to ask what the next numbers will be would be committing a prohibition if he acted according to my words, right?
If he or you think that you have an ability to predict such numbers, I do not see a prohibition in that.
How does that fit with what you wrote above:
“The advice being discussed is based on future knowledge that they have and we don’t; otherwise what added value do they have? Higher wisdom? If you are not relying on future knowledge, then perhaps this would fall under divination. It’s no different from making decisions based on seeing a black cat or clouds in the sky.”
Meaning
A black cat is not intuition. It is just an unrelated sign. Here we are talking about a feeling that you trust, whether rightly or wrongly. We have never heard that it is forbidden to trust one’s feelings.
I mean more the first part, from which I understood that it is forbidden to consult a communicator who claims to reveal the future
If he is communicating, yes. But if he is relying on intuition and not on communication with aliens, that is a different matter.
What would the law be if we’re talking about communication with entities that are not necessarily dead—let’s call them angels