Practical Kabbalah transferred techniques from practical to speculative Kabbalah. While this led to the displacement of magical formulas and rites by contemplative exercises, the old forms of practical Kabbalah continued to exert broad appeal. Luria's position as the central teacher of modern Kabbalah, the foundation for later Hasidism, gives his proscription authoritative force. He taught that in our generations, without the Temple in Jerusalem and its ashes of the Red Heifer to purify, the pursuit of the realm of practical Kabbalah by a person with an impure body is very detrimental. The traditional role of the Baal Shem healer involved accepted methods
Practical Kabbalah historical texts, but most Kabbalists have taught that its use is forbidden. It is contrasted with the mainstream tradition in Kabbalah of "Kabbalah Iyunit" (contemplative Kabbalah), that seeks to explain the nature of God and the nature of existence through theological study and Jewish meditative techniques. According to Gershom Scholem, many of the teachings of practical Kabbalah predate and are independent of the theoretical Kabbalah which is usually associated with the term: "Halakha" (Jewish religious law) forbids divination and other forms of soothsaying, and the Talmud lists many persistent yet condemned divining practices. The very frequency with which divination is