Jewish mysticism isn't just for celebs

Kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism, is known around the world thanks to the many Hollywood celebrities who have embraced its teachings.

While Madonna and Demi Moore may be seen walking in and out of kabbalah centers in Hollywood, the roots of this ancient form of study are in Safed, a mysterious town in northern Israel and a popular destination for kabbalah followers.

Its distant location, several hours from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, doesn't stop hundreds of thousands of people from visiting each year to get up close with kabbalah's origins and the Jewish mystics who defined it 500 years ago.

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Evermyrtle

I advise that anybody get into this after much research, Don' t do it just to see what is going on there. If you do get into be sure that you know what you are dong. It is spreading and many times people do not know what it is I can't tell you either Look it on on line.
John Adams

Mysticism of any brand (catholic, jewish, protestant, eastern religion, etc.) is evil and should be avoided at all cost.
evermyrtle

I understand there are a lot of people out there getting hooked on this thing, It is not a thing that Christians should get mixed up in. Mysticism and Christianity do not go together.
- Steve03
  
  Right on, evermyrtle. As soon as you read something by someone who claims that he or she was caught up to the third heaven, or met the risen Lord on the way to Damascus, or become one with the Father, or had a mountain-top experience with Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, or saw a vision of the end times or the heavenly court, you must throw the book down, because you know the author isn't a real Christian.
  - mallen11
    
    If it is in the Bible or referred to in the Bible it is true; otherwise it is of man and not from God.
mallen11

This is Eastern
religions / mysticism – Kabbalah
or Kabala in the Jewish religion. It is all
about you, the new age concepts with hope of greater reality. The searching of
life outside of God but there is no greater experience than God. Mystics mask Christianity and bring falsehood to the reality of the one true God.
Religion is never Christianity.
- Steve03
  
  Kabbalah is far older than "new age," and it — like all orthodox mysticism — is all about God, not "you." Mysticism is no more than seeking — or reporting — a direct, unmediated encounter with God — a foretaste of heaven. If such encounters are impossible, then the Reformation was a waste of time.
  Paul was a mystic, as was John the author of Revelation, and John the Evangelist (assuming they're not the same man), as indeed is anyone who truly speaks in tongues or receives a genuine vision of God: Justin Martyr, Athanasius, Pseudo-Dionysius, Augustine of Hippo, Bernard of Clairveaux, Hildegard, Francis of Assisi, Julian of Norwich, George Fox, William Law, Thomas Merton, etc.
  - mallen11
    
    Paul and the other Apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit when they wrote the scriptures and spoke in tongues or received visions UNTIL the Canon of Scripture was closed at the end of the 1st C.
    
    2 Timothy 3:16-17All scripture is God breathed, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
    
    2 Peter 1:20-21 But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.
    
    Gal 1:12 For I (Paul) neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
    
    Everything else is fake and out of bounds for any believer in the Lord Jesus Christ to participate in for any reason.
    - Steve03
      
      So God is dead, for all practical purposes.
      We have only the Book — an idol made with human hands, no better than the old kind by virtue of being made of paper and ink, rather than stone or brass. And Jesus lied in John 16:12-14, as did Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:8-12.
      And the canon of Scripture wasn't closed until the end of the 4th century: Athanasius' Paschal Letter of 367 is the first document that lists all of — and only — the 27 books of the canonical New Testament. But the East didn't fully accept Revelation until well into the 5th century, and Syrian churches were reading the Apocalypse of Peter as inspired Scripture into the 7th century.
      Depending on denomination, the Old Testament canon was finalized anywhere from 200 BC (the LXX) to AD 1647 (the Westminster Confession).
      - mallen11
        
        You are so very wrong.
      - Steve03
        
        Wrong but irrefutable, it seems.