For many centuries, the Kabbalah has regarded childhood as a time of special closeness to the divine, when children possess a heightened receptivity to the transcendental world. For example, a favored technique of Jewish divination during the Middle Ages was to ask children to gaze into a smooth polished surface, or the palm of a hand smeared with oil, and then recount their visions in response to guided questions posed by mystical adepts.
— Edward Hoffman, Opening the Inner Gates by Edward Hoffman, editor