[Avodah] "Blei Gissen" should we believe in this?

[Zev Sero]

Micha Berger wrote:
> I just sent out:
> : As RZS already noted, though, it is hard then to make heads or tails
> : of pereq Bameh Ishah. The discussion on Shabbos 61 is about medical
> : kemei'os. This gets into the whole question of what is wrong with
> : "whispering". As well as the question recently asked on another thread
> : about placebo effect.

> But I didn't say my own take... I would guess they're extra-halachic
> mnemonic devices, aids to kavanah, that cite a pasuq or keta that
> inspires the wearer. Thus, reducing kemei'os to sechar va'onesh. (As
> I'm trying to do to all these references.)

That would work if these amulets contained pesukim, and ones known to
the wearer.  But many do not seem to involve writing at all, and those
that do would seem to contain nonsense spells ("lechashim") rather than
anything that could inspire a person.  And the wearer seems not to have
to know what's inside, any more than we know the chemical makeup of
the medicine our doctors prescribe for us.  So I don't see how that
theory can be made to work.  Which is a pity.

PS: Almost the sole remnant of the amulet culture that remains with us
is the Shir Hamaalot that is put up for a newborn.  And it has long
seemed to me that someone ought to do one that doesn't have any of those
hands and strange combinations of letters and references to Lilith, and
instead just had the kapitel tehilim in large letters, with an English
translation, and a note asking people to please say this kapitel in the
baby's merit.

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas