Welcome to Gaia! ::

I was wondering I believe that it is rather clear that sorcery is wrong,
but King Solomon to my knowledge is viewed rather well and I do not know of anyone complaining about the golem of prague as evil, so this causes me some confusion, could someone explain?

Thank you, that was actually very interesting, but does it mean people would only be against magics when the do not work and claim it is under there own power? Because in no human can make any magics by there own power, does that mean any magic that works is a miracle?

Ten points for the Lehrer shout-out.

Now back to our regularly scheduled conversation. smile

I believe it all boils down to the first Commandment
"I am the LORD HASHEM who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me..."

Basically, lets say you're living in ancient Greece, and you're a farmer, and your crops need rain. Traditions dictate you would go to the temple of Poseidon and give money to the temple for advice, then High Priests would then instruct you on a ritual to appease Poseidon so that he may create a storm to end the drought upon your land.

Now, in Ancient Greece, Poseidon ruled the weather. Anyone who needed anything in regards to rain, had to talk to Poseidon. If you chose to go another route, Poseidon would be angry with you and so would your neighbors, as elder ancient Greek deities had a mean streak about them and would punish entire communities for the acts of one.

Now then... Most of the rules of Judaism in regards to everything from what we're supposed to eat, to how we're supposed to wear our hair. Many of the prohibitions were introduced simply because other more prominent communities made them common practice. So the reason we Jews talk to HASHEM instead of Poseidon or Neptune or Thor or whatever pagan god we happen to have knowledge of, is because we're not supposed to act like the others, we're supposed to act like Jews.

So the reasons that "other magics" are prohibited in most monotheistic religions such as our own, is simply because, we're to maintain our self identity and be true to our ancestors.

Christianity takes a different approach, adapting old pagan mythos and customs and turning them into Christian culture and customs. See "Xmas Tree" and "Easter Bunny."

However, in the above customs, if Jesus isn't a part of it, then it's all just a bunch of Devil Worshiping Pagan Voodoo.

Do you see what I'm trying to get at?

Yep, it violates the first commandment.

A deity by any other name, is not HASHEM, as there are no other gods but HASHEM.

I do it as a custom of how I was taught to separate the divine from the mundane.

As my teaching go, you need to be aware of what is mundane and what is divine. So as the practice goes you don't type out HASHEM normally. Nor do you use the words with higher spiritual value in normal speak. Such as @D0N@I. Those we intentionally mark up, as in "G-D" to keep the divine words from becoming mundane.

See what I'm getting at?