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religion · Shared topic · Revision 0

Are the kelipot demons?

What Are the Kelipot? The Shells in Kabbalah

Starting explanation, not independently reviewed

The current answer

Kabbalah's theory of evil: shells that conceal the divine light and live on what they capture, real enough to fight, too derivative to worship.

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Claims & evidence

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The kelipot (Hebrew "shells," "husks"; singular kelipah) are Kabbalah's name for the structures that conceal divine light and feed on it.

Imported citation, not independently checked: I. Tishby, The Wisdom of the Zohar (1989)

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In the Zohar they belong to the sitra achra, the "Other Side", a shadow-hierarchy of impurity with no light of its own.

Imported citation, not independently checked: Zohar; I. Tishby, The Wisdom of the Zohar

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Nogah is the mixed zone: everything permitted but not yet holy.

Imported citation, not independently checked: Shneur Zalman, Tanya 6-8

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Lurianic Kabbalah, built in sixteenth-century Safed, gave the shells their origin story.

Imported citation, not independently checked: Chaim Vital, Etz Chaim; L. Fine, Physician of the Soul (2003)

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