Spirit Possession in Judaism: Cases and Contexts from the Middle Ages to the Present

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Matt Goldish
Wayne State University Press, 2003 - 476 páginas

A rich, multidisciplinary exploration of spirit possession among Jews.

This extraordinary collection of essays is the first to approach the phenomenon of spirit possession among Jews from a multidisciplinary perspective. What beliefs have Jews held about spirit possession? Have Jewish people believed themselves to be possessed by spirits? If so, what sorts of spirits were they? Have Jews' conceptions of possession been the same as those of their Christian and Muslim neighbors? These are some of the questions addressed in these thirteen essays, which together explore spirit possession in a wide range of temporal and geographic contexts.
The phenomena known as spirit possession are both very widespread and very difficult to explain. The late Raphael Patai initiated study of spirit possession as found in the Jewish world in the post-Talmudic period by taking a folkloric and anthropological approach to the subject. Other scholars have opened up new avenues of inquiry through discussions of the topic in connection with Jewish mystical and magical traditions. The essays in this collection expand the variety of approaches to the subject, addressing Jewish possession phenomena from the points of view of religion, mysticism, literature, anthropology, psychology, history, and folklore. Scholarly views and popular traditions, benevolent spirits and malevolent shades, exorcism, social control, messianic implications, madness, literary structure, and a host of other topics are brought into the discussion of spirit possession in Jewish culture. This juxtaposition of approaches among the essays in this volume, some of which analyze the same texts in different ways, creates a broad foundation on which to contemplate the meaning of spirit possession.

Dentro del libro

Contenido

Foreword
9
Prologue
25
An Analysis of Dybbuk
41
Possession and Exorcism in the Magical Texts of the Cairo Geniza
73
Prologue
99
Spirit Possession in SixteenthCentury Safed
124
Pneumatic Mystical Possession and the Eschatology of the Soul
159
Maggidim Spirits and Women in Rabbi Hayyim Vitals Book
186
Appendices
291
Prologue
305
The Cultural Distinctiveness and Historical
346
Texts concerning Spirit Possession in Sixteenth
367
Lurianic Texts concerning His Portion and
385
Lurianic Texts concerning the Hazards of the Self
403
Texts from Vitals Autobiography concerning the
417
From Shaar Ruah haKodesh The Gate of Holy
437

Prologue
215
Kabbalah and Jewish Exorcism in SeventeenthCentury Italian
237
Toward a Phenome
257
Contributors
455
Derechos de autor

Términos y frases comunes

Acerca del autor (2003)

Matt Goldish is Samuel M. and Esther Melton Associate Professor of Jewish History at the Ohio State University. His books include Judaism in the Theology of Sir Isaac Newton, winner of the Salo Baron Prize of the American Academy for Jewish Research, 2000.

Información bibliográfica