[Avodah] The Talmud's Many Demons

[Rich, Joel]

The problem, as I see it, is that there is a limit to how far these metaphors can go, and this was explicitly addressed in the article cited. I am referring to the procedures which (we are told) can be used to make these demons visible:

> The problem is that the rabbis did not intend it as a metaphor.
> This becomes clear from the ensuing discussion of the effects
> of demons and the ways of making them visible. ... All you have
> to do is find a black female cat who is the firstborn daughter
> of a firstborn mother, burn her placenta to ashes, grind the
> ashes, and put some of them in your eye, and you will be able
> to see the demons. Be sure, however, to place the remainder of
> the ashes in a sealed iron tube, lest the demons steal it from
> you.

I do realize that many wise men of the time, both Jewish and not, believed this stuff. But how should **I** understand it?


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I can't tell you how to understand it, I understand it that they were operating on the "best" information they had (not from Moshe misinai but from being "observant") as to how the world operated.  I  encourage folks to consider the famous quote from Theodoric of York in this context (and think about we knew about how the brain operates 50 years ago and today):

"You know, medicine is not an exact science, but we are learning all the time. Why, just fifty years ago, they thought a disease like your daughter's was caused by demonic possession or witchcraft. But nowadays we know that Isabelle is suffering from an imbalance of bodily humors, perhaps caused by a toad or a small dwarf living in her stomach."

KT
Joel Rich
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