Download or read book Ancient Jewish Magic written by Gideon Bohak and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-02-24 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gideon Bohak gives a pioneering account of the broad history of ancient Jewish magic, from the Second Temple to the rabbinic period. It is based both on ancient magicians' own compositions and products in Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek, and on the descriptions and prescriptions of non-magicians, to reconstruct a historical picture that is as balanced and nuanced as possible. The main focus is on the cultural make-up of ancient Jewish magic, and special attention is paid to the processes of cross-cultural contacts and borrowings between Jews and non-Jews, as well as to inner-Jewish creativity. Other major issues explored include the place of magic within Jewish society, contemporary Jewish attitudes to magic, and the identity of its practitioners. Throughout, the book seeks to explain the methodological underpinnings of all sound research in this demanding field, and to highlight areas where further research is likely to prove fruitful.
Download or read book Jewish Magic and Superstition written by Joshua Trachtenberg and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2012-10-08 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alongside the formal development of Judaism from the eleventh through the sixteenth centuries, a robust Jewish folk religion flourished—ideas and practices that never met with wholehearted approval by religious leaders yet enjoyed such wide popularity that they could not be altogether excluded from the religion. According to Joshua Trachtenberg, it is not possible truly to understand the experience and history of the Jewish people without attempting to recover their folklife and beliefs from centuries past. Jewish Magic and Superstition is a masterful and utterly fascinating exploration of religious forms that have all but disappeared yet persist in the imagination. The volume begins with legends of Jewish sorcery and proceeds to discuss beliefs about the evil eye, spirits of the dead, powers of good, the famous legend of the golem, procedures for casting spells, the use of gems and amulets, how to battle spirits, the ritual of circumcision, herbal folk remedies, fortune telling, astrology, and the interpretation of dreams. First published more than sixty years ago, Trachtenberg's study remains the foundational scholarship on magical practices in the Jewish world and offers an understanding of folk beliefs that expressed most eloquently the everyday religion of the Jewish people.
Download or read book Jewish Magic Before the Rise of Kabbalah written by Yuval Harari and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-02 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive study of Jewish magic in the late antiquity and the early Islamic period—the phenomenon, the sources, and method for its research, and the history of scholarly investigation into its nature and origin. "Magic culture is certainly fascinating. But what is it? What, in fact, are magic writings, magic artifacts?" Originally published in Hebrew in 2010, Jewish Magic Before the Rise of Kabbalah is a comprehensive study of early Jewish magic focusing on three major topics: Jewish magic inventiveness, the conflict with the culture it reflects, and the scientific study of both. The first part of the book analyzes the essence of magic in general and Jewish magic in particular. The book begins with theories addressing the relationship of magic and religion in fields like comparative study of religion, sociology of religion, history, and cultural anthropology, and considers the implications of the paradigm shift in the interdisciplinary understanding of magic for the study of Jewish magic. The second part of the book focuses on Jewish magic culture in late antiquity and in the early Islamic period. This section highlights the artifacts left behind by the magic practitioners—amulets, bowls, precious stones, and human skulls—as well as manuals that include hundreds of recipes. Jewish Magic before the Rise of Kabbalah also reports on the culture that is reflected in the magic evidence from the perspective of external non-magic contemporary Jewish sources. Issues of magic and religion, magical mysticism, and magic and social power are dealt with in length in this thorough investigation. Scholars interested in early Jewish history and comparative religions will find great value in this text.
Download or read book The Sword of Moses an Ancient Book of Magic written by Moses Gaster and published by Cosimo, Inc.. This book was released on 2005-11-01 with total page 57 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: They have... books with these terrible, awe-inspiring Names... they know that the use of these mysterious Names, without due and careful preparation, brings with it calamity and premature death. -from the introduction How much ancient wisdom was lost in the medieval years! here laments Moses Gaster, one of the most prominent Jewish theologians and folklorists of the late 19th century. In 1896, he translated a fragmentary relic of Gnostic literature, a manuscript concerned with the many secret names of God believed by Kabbalists to wield enormous magical power, but in the discussion that here precedes the translation, Gaster acknowledges that this document only hints at the texts that may be lost forever. It remains a tantalizing peek into archaic occult mysteries. Jewish scholar MOSES GASTER (1856-1939) was born in Romania but emigrated to England, where he lectured at Oxford University. His wrote numerous books of theology, folklore, history, and literature, including History of Rumanian Popular Literature (1883) and five-volume Sephardic prayer book (1901-6).
Download or read book The Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth Magic Mysticism written by Geoffrey W. Dennis and published by Llewellyn Worldwide. This book was released on 2016-02-08 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jewish esotericism is the oldest and most influential continuous occult tradition in the West. Presenting lore that can spiritually enrich your life, this one-of-a-kind encyclopedia is devoted to the esoteric in Judaism—the miraculous and the mysterious. In this second edition, Rabbi Geoffrey W. Dennis has added over thirty new entries and significantly expanded over one hundred other entries, incorporating more knowledge and passages from primary sources. This comprehensive treasury of Jewish teachings, drawn from sources spanning Jewish scripture, the Talmud, the Midrash, the Kabbalah, and other esoteric branches of Judaism, is exhaustively researched yet easy to use. It includes over one thousand alphabetical entries, from Aaron to Zohar Chadesh, with extensive cross-references to related topics and new illustrations throughout. Drawn from the well of a great spiritual tradition, the secret wisdom within these pages will enlighten and empower you. Praise: "An erudite and lively compendium of Jewish magical beliefs, practices, texts, and individuals...This superb, comprehensive encyclopedia belongs in every serious library."—Richard M. Golden, Director of the Jewish Studies Program, University of North Texas, and editor of The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The Western Tradition "Rabbi Dennis has performed a tremendously important service for both the scholar and the novice in composing a work of concise information about aspects of Judaism unbeknownst to most, and intriguing to all."—Rabbi Gershon Winkler, author of Magic of the Ordinary: Recovering the Shamanic in Judaism
Download or read book The Cambridge History of Magic and Witchcraft in the West written by David J. Collins, S. J. and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-02 with total page 897 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents twenty chapters by experts in their fields, providing a thorough and interdisciplinary overview of the theory and practice of magic in the West. Its chronological scope extends from the Ancient Near East to twenty-first-century North America; its objects of analysis range from Persian curse tablets to US neo-paganism. For comparative purposes, the volume includes chapters on developments in the Jewish and Muslim worlds, evaluated not simply for what they contributed at various points to European notions of magic, but also as models of alternative development in ancient Mediterranean legacy. Similarly, the volume highlights the transformative and challenging encounters of Europeans with non-Europeans, regarding the practice of magic in both early modern colonization and more recent decolonization.
Download or read book Jewish Love Magic written by Ortal-Paz Saar and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-08-28 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jewish Love Magic: From Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages is the first monograph dedicated to the supernatural methods employed by Jews in order to generate love, grace or hate. Examining hundreds of manuscripts, often unpublished, Ortal-Paz Saar skillfully illuminates a major aspect of the Jewish magical tradition. The book explores rituals, spells and important motifs of Jewish love magic, repeatedly comparing them to the Graeco-Roman and Christian traditions. In addition to recipes and amulets in Hebrew, Aramaic and Judaeo-Arabic, primarily originating in the Cairo Genizah, also rabbinic sources and responsa are analysed, resulting in a comprehensive and fascinating picture. “Due to the general neglect of the topic in previous scholarship, the richness of the research corpus and the scientific precision of the author, Saar’s Jewish Love Magic is an important volume that should be on the shelf of every scholar focusing on ancient Jewish magic, but also on Jewish culture and cultural history in general. Furthermore, the book is an enjoyable read also for a non-specialist audience thanks to its clarity and fluency.” - Alessia Belusci, Yale University, in: Journal of Semitic Studies 64.2 (2019) “This is a valuable foray into the relationship between institutionalised religion and magic and the complex question of ‘legitimacy’. Overall, the book presents a compelling case for the existence of Jewish ‘love magic’.” -Ann Jeffers, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 43.5 (2019)
Download or read book Divination Magic and Healing written by Ronald H. Isaacs and published by Jason Aronson. This book was released on 1998 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To find more information on Rowman & Littlefield titles, please visit us at www.rowmanlittlefield.com.
Download or read book Prayer Magic and the Stars in the Ancient and Late Antique World written by Scott Noegel and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the religious systems of ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Mediterranean, gods and demigods were neither abstract nor distant, but communicated with mankind through signs and active intervention. Men and women were thus eager to interpret, appeal to, and even control the gods and their agents. In Prayer, Magic, and the Stars in the Ancient and Late Antique World, a distinguished array of scholars explores the many ways in which people in the ancient world sought to gain access to--or, in some cases, to bind or escape from--the divine powers of heaven and earth. Grounded in a variety of disciplines, including Assyriology, Classics, and early Islamic history, the fifteen essays in this volume cover a broad geographic area: Greece, Egypt, Syria-Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Persia. Topics include celestial divination in early Mesopotamia, the civic festivals of classical Athens, and Christian magical papyri from Coptic Egypt. Moving forward to Late Antiquity, we see how Judaism, Christianity, and Islam each incorporated many aspects of ancient Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman religion into their own prayers, rituals, and conceptions. Even if they no longer conceived of the sun, moon, and the stars as eternal or divine, Christians, Jews, and Muslims often continued to study the movements of the heavens as a map on which divine power could be read. The reader already familiar with studies of ancient religion will find in Prayer, Magic, and the Stars both old friends and new faces. Contributors include Gideon Bohak, Nicola Denzey, Jacco Dieleman, Radcliffe Edmonds, Marvin Meyer, Michael G. Morony, Ian Moyer, Francesca Rochberg, Jonathan Z. Smith, Mark S. Smith, Peter Struck, Michael Swartz, and Kasia Szpakowska. Published as part of Penn State's Magic in History series, Prayer, Magic, and the Stars appears at a time of renewed interest in divination and occult practices in the ancient world. It will interest a wide audience in the field of comparative religion as well as students of the ancient world and late antiquity.
Download or read book Casting Lots written by Elisheva Nesher and published by Weiser Books. This book was released on 2022-11-01 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “In Casting Lots, Elisheva Nesher does not just present the system of using the aleph-beit to cast lots for spiritual guidance and wisdom, she also shows the range of divine beings and spiritual practices in ancient Canaan/Israel, as well as the modern polytheist revival. There is a warmth and generosity here towards all sides that we all can learn from.” —Rachel Pollack, author of Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom and A Walk Through the Forest of Souls Lots are an ancient Hebrew form of divination and magic that may also be used for healing, blessing, cursing, meditation, and spiritual interaction. A set of lots contains twenty-two small discs, each one bearing one of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. In a manner similar to runes, these lots are then cast and interpreted. Though lots were once so common that explanations of how to cast them were unnecessary, over the centuries their methods and uses fell into obscurity. In this practical guide, author and seer Elisheva Nesher has reconstructed the ancient art of lot casting for modern times. Her book contains explanations for each of the twenty-two lots and explores their meanings, both mystical and mundane. It also includes detailed instructions on how to cast, as well as craft your own set of lots. In addition to divination, Casting Lots explores the magical gifts of the lots as well as how to use them to contact and interact with the Hebrew spirits, such as Asherah. A brief guide is included for those unfamiliar with these spirits. Casting Lots is a complete instruction manual for mastering the art of lot casting.
Download or read book The Magic of the Sword of Moses written by Harold Roth and published by Weiser Books. This book was released on 2022-08-01 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A practical guide to the famed medieval book of pre-kabbalistic Jewish magic, freshly interpreted and revealed for the first time with instructions on how to use the spells. The Sword of Moses is one of the earliest Jewish magic books, which describes a rite for adjuring angels to assist in controlling and wielding the "Sword of Moses" for magical purposes. The rite involves a short period of purification and then the adjuring of four sets of angels, each higher than the last. These angels in turn give the magician the power to control the Sword through a series of divine names that work as magical spells. The spells, 137 in all, have a wide variety of uses, including healing, harm, love, sex, exorcising demons, divination, and more. This work was first translated by Moses Gaster in 1896, but he removed many of the spells, making the text unusable for magic. The Magic of the Sword of Moses is the first book to show in detail, exactly how a magician can use the Sword—how to do the purification ritual, adjure the angels, and pronounce and use the divine names for each spell.
Download or read book The Dovekeepers written by Alice Hoffman and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-10-04 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An ambitious and mesmerizing novel from the bestselling author of Rules of Magic. The Dovekeepers is “striking….Hoffman grounds her expansive, intricately woven, and deepest new novel in biblical history, with a devotion and seriousness of purpose” (Entertainment Weekly). Nearly two thousand years ago, nine hundred Jews held out for months against armies of Romans on Masada, a mountain in the Judean desert. According to the ancient historian Josephus, two women and five children survived. Based on this tragic and iconic event, Hoffman’s novel is a spellbinding tale of four extraordinarily bold, resourceful, and sensuous women, each of whom has come to Masada by a different path. Yael’s mother died in childbirth, and her father, an expert assassin, never forgave her for that death. Revka, a village baker’s wife, watched the murder of her daughter by Roman soldiers; she brings to Masada her young grandsons, rendered mute by what they have witnessed. Aziza is a warrior’s daughter, raised as a boy, a fearless rider and expert marksman who finds passion with a fellow soldier. Shirah, born in Alexandria, is wise in the ways of ancient magic and medicine, a woman with uncanny insight and power. The lives of these four complex and fiercely independent women intersect in the desperate days of the siege. All are dovekeepers, and all are also keeping secrets—about who they are, where they come from, who fathered them, and whom they love.
Download or read book Demons Angels and Writing in Ancient Judaism written by Annette Yoshiko Reed and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-16 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new explanation of the beginnings of Jewish angelology and demonology, drawing on non-canonical writings and Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls.
Download or read book On My Right Michael On My Left Gabriel written by Mika Ahuvia and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction : angelic greetings or Shalom Aleichem -- At home with the angels : Babylonian ritual sources -- Out and about with the angels : Palestinian ritual sources -- No angels? early rabbinic sources -- In the image of God, not angels : rabbinic sources -- In the image of the angels : liturgical sources -- Israel among the angels : Late rabbinic sources -- Jewish mystics and the angelic realms : early mystical sources -- Conclusion : angels in Judaism and the religions of late antiquity -- Appendix A : table -- Appendix B : description of table.
Download or read book The Materiality of Power written by Brian B. Schmidt and published by Mohr Siebeck. This book was released on 2016-05-03 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Were there countervailing cosmic realms ruled by Yahweh and Asherah in late pre-exilic Israel? Brian B. Schmidt presents five case studies corroborating the existence of a daimonic realm replete with intermediary protecticve spirits and a pandemonium that wreaked havoc upon both the living and dead. Having converged with Egypt's protective deities Bes and Beset, YHWH and Asherah also possessed the enhanced powers to govern a counteractive apotropaic realm from which Asherah mediated divine portections for humanity." -- bck cover
Download or read book Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic written by David Frankfurter and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-03-19 with total page 817 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume seeks to advance the study of ancient magic through separate discussions of ancient terms for ambiguous or illicit ritual, the ancient texts commonly designated magical, and contexts in which the term magic may be used descriptively.
Download or read book Jewish Mysticism and Magic written by Maureen Bloom and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-08-07 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Providing a unique anthropological perspective on Jewish mysticism and magic, this book is a study of Jewish rites and rituals and how the analysis of early literature provides the roots for understanding religious practices. It includes analysis on the importance of sacrifice, amulets, and names, and their underlying cultural constructs and the persistence of their symbolic significance.
