Symbols In Jewish Exorcism

Jewish Exorcism I: Defeating Demons

In keeping with the vague description of Saul's torment by an evil spirit in I Samuel, the earliest post-Biblical sources do not make a clear distinction between demonic attack and demonic possession, so the earliest sources that describe driving away demons [1] do not specify whether the spirit is actually physically in control of the victim. As I mentioned in an earlier entry, references in demonic attack in Jewish sources of antiquity most closely associate the demonic with illness and disease, but Jewish sources do not explicitly describe anything we today would describe as a physical "possession." curiously, the only indication we have that Jews believed demons actually seized the body of their victim comes from sources "outside" authoritative Jewish tradition - the Jewish historian Josephus, who gives an accounts of demonic possession in his homeland [Wars 7; Antiquities 8:2,5], and in the Christian gospels (assuming we can rely on them to give us an accurate account of life in 1st Century Eretz Israel), Jesus reportedly exorcised quite a number of people (Mark 5 is a classic). Perhaps the relative silence of Talmuds and Midrash on the topic indicates there was a popular belief in and about possession that our Sages did not approve of. At the very least, demonic possession did not seem to be much of a concern of the Rishonim To the best of my knowledge, there is no preserved ritual or liturgy for a demonic exorcism of an individual from antiquity. Perhaps the most intriguing source for what an early exorcism might have looked like are the texts that appear on "Demon Bowls" or "Incantation Bowls." These clay cauldrons were covered with spells, symbols, and illustrations. The function of these bowls could vary. Many were apotropaic - they were meant to be preventative protection against spiritual attack of a home and its inhabitants.