of Jewish magical traditions. First of all, it included significant passages and even entire works from earlier strata in the history of Jewish magic, including material from texts and teachers who played a central role in the development of Safedian Kabbalah. Tirshom copied from Sefer ha-Meshiv, perhaps the most important work from late medieval Spain to provide the theoretical under-pinnings of dybbuk possession as well as traditions in the name of individuals such as R. Ḥayyim Ashkenazi, a mystic acquainted with the father of Vital and whose prophecies regarding Ḥayyim Vital are noted in the latter’s journal.42 Second, Shoshan Yesod ha-‘Olam was clearly an important manuscript for the mystical inheritors of Luria’s legacy. Autographs and annotations in the margins indicate that it passed through the hands of important redactors of Lurianic literature, including R. Ya‘aqov Ẓemaḥ, and even caught the attention of no less a striking figure than Sabbetai Sevi, whose signature appears on page 522!43 Additions to the manuscript—including a commentary on Luria’s sabbath meal hymns—are in a mixture of Spanish and Ashkenazic handwriting, indicating that it found a home among the Ashkenazi sages who studied with Sephardic authorities in Jerusalem in the early seventeenth century; other additions exhibit a liberal use of Ladino.44 In short, just as Tirshom copied copiously from earlier works as well as from his contemporaries, his great manuscript became an important source for subsequent generations of practical kabbalists and copyists.
Shoshan Yesod ha-‘Olam is full of exorcism rituals. Although many techniques are suggested in the manuscript, the ingredients that go into most of them would be found in every good magician’s cabinets. The procedures almost universally call for the adjuration of spirits, some angelic and some demonic, in the classic form “I adjure you angel so-and-so to come and to do such-and-such.” The exorcist must adjure the appropriate angel for the job, because each day has its own angel who must be enlisted for the operation to be a success. The procedures have much in common with those found on the magical bowls of antiquity as well as with those of the PGM. Bowls are still very much in use—they are written upon, erased, and filled with living waters made murky by the erasure. The potion is then given to the possessed to drink. Other passages suggest that deer skin be used in lieu of a bowl or that the magical names be written directly upon the forehead and arms of the possessed. Psalms, foremost among them the famous antidemonic Psalm 91, also have their uses here, suggesting parallels going back to Qumran and forward to the Rituale Romanum.45 Elsewhere, the exorcist is advised to supplement the recitation of two chapters of Psalms with the use of leaves from a date palm that has not yet produced fruit.46 Finally, it is important to note that most techniques suggested for treating spirit possession have other uses as well—they are truly broad-spectrum remedies. Shoshan Yesod ha-‘Olam includes a technique that promises to offer protection from injuries, doubts and fears, bad dreams, business negotiation problems, crying children, women having difficulty in labor, dangers of travel, and demonic afflictions.47 Another technique is said to have the power to confuse and confound one’s enemy, while also being capable of exorcising a demon and exiling someone from his or her place of residence.48 The ability to treat disparate problems with one solution stems from a belief that the problems had a common etiology, often astrologically or sympathetically understood.
Quite nearly at random, then, we may choose from the many techniques of adjuration exorcism in Shoshan Yesod ha-‘Olam to exemplify the “pre-Lurianic” approach. Little had changed in the composition of such techniques since antiquity, as a cursory comparison with our PGM text well demonstrates. In one exorcism technique recorded by Tirshom (§511), the exorcist-magician is given the following instructions in order “[t]o remove a demon [shed] from the body of a man or woman, or anything into which a male or female demon has entered”:
Take an empty flask and a white waxen candle, and recite this adjuration in purity:
I adjure you, the holy and pure angels Michael, Raphael, Shuviel, Ahadriel, Zumtiel, Yeḥutiel, Zumẓiel …. By 72 names I adjure you, you all the retinues of spirits in the world—Be-‘ail Laḥush and all your retinue; Kapkafuni the Queen of the Demons and all your retinue; and Agrat bat Malkat and all your retinue, and Zmamit and all your retinue, and those that were made on the eve of the Sabbath49—that you bring forth that demon immediately and do not detain the mazzik of so-and-so, and tell me his name in this circle that I have drawn in your honor ….
Immediately they will tell you his name and the name of his father and the name of his mother aloud; do not fear them.
Immediately recite this adjuration in such a way:
I adjure you the demon so-and-so, by the utterance of the watchers and the holy ones [cf. Dan. 4:14] by YHVH God of the Heavens, with these names I adjure you the demon so-and-so, son of so-and-so and so-and-so, that you now enter this flask immediately and immediately the flask will turn red. Immediately say to him these five names YHV YHV …. That demon will immediately cry a great and bitter cry from the great pressure; do not believe him until he swears by YUD HA VAV HA explicitly.50 Then leave him alone and pay him no further heed.51
This procedure again contains familiar elements, many of them ubiquitous in exorcism techniques. Hardware requirements are minimal—the standard glass flask, common in Arabic magic for these types of applications, and a white candle. Holy angels and demonic spirits are adjured by the exorcist, enlisted to assist him by forcing the penetrating demon to disclose his name and the names of his parents. Once the demon has been named, it becomes vulnerable to adjurations that force its departure and subsequent capture in the flask. At this point, with the demon quite literally in the exorcist’s hands, the exorcist makes his final adjurations and is “left alone.” Although this formula does not include instructions for disposing of the flask, options ranged from disposal in a barren place to a thorough rinsing in water.
In all, exorcism techniques preserved in late medieval Hebrew manuscripts indicate that little had changed since antiquity. Comprising both adjurations and operations based upon the occult properties of objects, these exorcism techniques blend natural and demonic magic to full effect.52 Moreover, the ceremonies retain the theatrical power that had made them the miracles par excellence of antiquity. This theatricality and the powerful impression made by public exorcisms almost certainly led to the interest in their control by elites, no less than it did to their success as a healing modality.53
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