The Origins of the Dybbuk - How the Kabbalah Transformed Possession & Exorcism of the Evil Dead 

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Dr. Sledge! Hearing about how as a kid you looked up the creepy books referenced in H. P. Love craft books, and how you own a burnt piece of the Crowley estate has driven me to go back and watch all the back log videos of yours that I haven’t seen yet. Your quick wit and hilarious yet very relatable stories that you give in interviews shows such a fun side of you. I can’t wait to see what else you put out into the world. A valuable video would be rating useful second languages as someone getting into esotericism based on the lack of (good)English translations. Or valuable second languages based on paths within esotericism. Just an idea for us English only viewers that want to take the leap in the name of a lifetime of study. ~ Sending warmth from the suburbs of Seattle

It's really, really great that there's somebody on RU-vid treating deeply strange ideas from the past as seriously as the people who held them did. Some ideas turn out to be philosophical 'dead ends,' but it's still fascinating to try to grasp the thought processes that lead some very smart people down those alleys. I now desperately want to see that 1937 Dybbuk movie.

As someone with fibromyalgia, which is poorly understood even by modern medicine, I can totally see how people could believe in possessions and the clinging dead. I have constant burning all-over pain, joint pain, mental fog, memory issues. Funnily enough, like a vampire, sunlight even hurts my skin! (It's either the UV or the infrared, idk). Sometimes I get so frustrated about it, I could see myself believing it's a demon or something.

Make sure to check out the other episodes in this Collab: @Angela's Symposium - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zAQp0htYVOY.html @Let's Talk Religion - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-hPihRoMVyaI.html @The Modern Hermeticist - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-A1fROdAhNTA.html

Personally speaking, I am an agnostic. But I cannot deny how fascinating it is to learn about this stuff.

“Clay dungeons”… love it! Have not heard that one before, very appropriate. Thank you for continuing to share your knowledge with us!

I have to say, years ago I briefly (two years worth or so), studied Kabbalah, even studied the Zohar under Rabbinical tutelage. This presentation was nothing like what I learned there. This one makes a lot more sense. Actually, this was incredibly eye-opening, on many levels. Thank you! 👍👍

16:30 reminds me of a moderately new phenomenon called “soaking” (not Mormon soaking!) where a certain sect of charismatic Christians lie on-top or near the graves of good people to “soak in” the grace/exultation etc. of the dead person. History repeats itself.

Wonderful to see religion (so not only your channel) be taught to the public from a scholarly view.

Insightful video as usual. Happy (upcoming) Halloween, Beltane, Samhain, All Saints Day, etc! - The Moorish Science Monitor ✌🏾🇲🇦🤚🏾

My bf and I recently watched the movie "Attachment," sort of a horror/love story featuring a LOT of Kabbalistic magic/ritual. I would love to know how much they got right from a historical perspective, and how much was altered for the sake of the movie! Idk if you ever considered doing reaction style vids before, or if you're interested in examining these ideas as they are portrayed in media, but I'd definitely watch something like that. :)

Loved the Dybbuk (1938) shout out at the end. Superb content, as usual, Justin!

Wonderful work Dr. Sledge! Thank you for exploring the Occult in a careful and thoughtful manner. Baruch Hashem! Shalom Aleichem.

You know you got a good channel when you can call the exorcism in the Greek Magical Papyri generic

There's just something unsettlingly exciting, the way you say "existential dread" ☠️

another brilliant topic & agreed, The Dybbuk perfect for this time of year follow it up with the just plain eerie ; a true existential dread in Mario Bava's 1966 Kill, Baby Kill which takes the Dybbuk as an obvious starting point being as his father would most likely been involved as a camera operator & camera fx designer as he was one of very few to choose that were confidant in the use of the emerging telephoto lens & film to record on practically since films inception the Bava's & Argento's have been involved in Europe and such 'technicians rarely got recorded who beyond director & lighting & sound once it was able to be included..Great episode!👻👹

Something here reminded me of a prayer my great grandmother would say every night before bed: ''As I lay me down to sleep, I pray the lord my soul to keep. And if I die before I wake, I pray the lord my soul to take.'' I wonder if keeping the soul wasn't a sort of evolution towards the prevention of demonic possession? I know my grandma wasn't super obsessed with the concept like people are now, though she was very religious to the point of bigotry. She was catholic, and it always seemed to me they held on to quite a bit of mysticism, but my family had quite a few people who claimed to have religious visions, and we have some sort of extra sensory powers... though we also have a lot of autism, so some of our predictive ability can be explained. Knowing the moment a family member close to us has passed is a little harder to explain. But I felt my dad in a life threatening situation, so it's not like I haven't experienced what my other family members are talking about. Timing and everything. I got physically nauseous over it at that time because of the panic it induced. First ever panic attack I had, and it had no discernable trigger. I had a dreadful feeling until I got home and we got the news. Found out about the time of accident later being the time of the class period I had my panic attack. It was like an answer to the invisible problem I had...but man... my dad was lucky to be alive, and everyone who knew what happened or saw the wreck would tell you so. I find your channel very interesting, as it's interesting to see some of our stranger quirks reflected in old literature, and even find some echoes like this. It's interesting to see how human belief has evolved over time, and leaves me wondering what we lost. And what we might rediscover if we find a way to measure what's unexplainable now. What I experienced may have been called a possession at one point in history, where it's called stress in my time. Wonder what it might really be?

I wonder if Frank Herbert could be inspired by these ideas for the 'abomination' in his Dune saga, in which a person with the memories of their ancestors is possesed by one of them who had a strong will and personality.

You're too good for RU-vid. This is fantastically informative and spooky, I will be checking out the play and film!

A lot of Dybbuk Box lore us entering pop culture. Many a horror story nowadays begins with the acquisition of and opening of a Dybbuk box then continues with the haunting or possession of some malevolent spirit

Wonderful video as usual. Thanks so much Dr. Sledge. Happy spooky season

OMG I got to know about your channel through Let's Talk Religion!! Love the collab and content!

Great lecture on one of my favorite types of ghosts, can't wait to see what you have reserved before Halloween

Just discovered this channel and I cant stop watching! Great videos :)

As a child, learned about the Dybbuk through the cartoon "rugrats" The main character has jewish grandparents and they tell him the story of the Dybbuk.

Fascinating work. Thank you!

Wow! I've just discovered your channel, Thank you it's great , everything, presentation, content, your wit and new knowledge to me.

Every notification from this channel is an absolute joy. Very excited to watch this one 🙏

THANK YOU DR JUSTIN SLEDGE YOU ARE AMAZING. Thank you for all these lectures and videos. Your humour is supreme, many many thanks.

this was a fascinating video, thank you!

Maybe one of the most interesting and educational channel on this site 🖤

I so enjoyed this. Very academic and straight forward

I love your halloween episodes Dr. Sledge. Keep doing what you do 👍👍👍👍

Whenever I hear the teaching that sleep is 1/60th of death and dreams are 1/60th of prophecy, I always wish more was said that this is the ratio of nullification.

Man! I wish I could just sit with you and discuss this topic on recording! This description of reincarnation matches my theory, just in different words. Where part of the spiritual body, as I call the Kami, can be adopted, either automatically or artificially, from the akashic records. Basically, think of a computer as the body. We have the soul, the spirit, and the Kami. The Kami is like a backup harddrive of whatever's on the main harddrive. Reincarnation is someone else's harddrive being installed.

Thank you, Dr. Sledge, as always, for your sterling work as a researcher, teacher, and presenter! Your channel has enriched my life greatly with the knowledge and insight you've made available to the curious public. It is my opinion that the theories and beliefs regarding the dybbuk phenomenon may well be true. I base this belief primarily upon my own experiences, and the experiences of my family and our family friends, that began when my father moved into a very haunted house many years ago. My sister and I were children, and the time we spent there was always overshadowed by eerie and disturbing events and sensations that seemed to emanate from a malevolent presence that lurked about that location. Both children and adults were subject to frightening encounters with disembodied presences, horrific nightmares, levitations and other unpleasantness. Over time, we all came to believe that we were being plagued and interfered with by a spirit that belonged to an evil man, who though deceased, was nonetheless active. Disgustingly, there was often a sexual element to the types of attacks to which people were subjected, as if this revenant were able to feed upon the energy produced by our fear and by our sense of violation. Of course, we ourselves were not pious, and were not Jewish (except for my father's second wife) so maybe that is why we were so vulnerable? Perhaps it would have helped had we converted? Who knows. I personally believe that this phenomenon is universal and takes place in cultures all over the world, and that it is known by many different names. I only share this creepy reminiscence to illustrate why I believe that the rabbinical exorcists may have been quite right in their beliefs. The dead can be aggressive toward the living, and some of the dead are perverted bastards indeed. Thankfully, none of us were ever possessed outright, but the things we experienced were definitely enough to ruin one's day, and they left us all with enough nightmare fuel to last a lifetime. In short, dybbuks are the absolute pits! Here's hoping that somebody finds a remedy for them and that he or she then shares it with the rest of the world. A lot of people will rest more easily once such a breakthrough has been achieved. My sincere apologies for the long and rambling comment. I didn't mean to go on so, and I hope that what I shared wasn't too personal or repulsive. All the best to you, and may you be blessed with a life free from all manner of spectral interlopers! Sincerely, --N

This is so interesting. You have yourself a new subscriber. ❤️

My first exposure to word Gilgul was from Mage: The Ascension as a punishment. It's yet another word years later I learned as used by White Wolf publishing backwards and probably insultingly. It's nice to know this definition of the cycle or in relationship to reincarnation.

great episode! I wish we knew more about gaelic concepts of reincarnation so we could gauge what, if any, influence it had on Mediterranean beliefs.

Anyone else catch Dr. Sledge on Flightless Bird this week? Very cool comments re: Halloween. Well worth the listen. Makes me want to throw an old-school Bogie (sp?) Book party with the green lights and dressing rooms...

I saw the title and thought I'd come and say this reminds me of the beginning scene of A Serious Man! Great movie!

Adore your channel always.

I was watching Dimension 20's old "Unsleeping City" game, and one of the kind NPC's is the Williamsburg Gollem who recruits you to dispel some Dybbuk. I didn't know what they were, but here you are just uploading this video! ^__^ Thanks, Dr. Sledge. Also oh my goodness those Talmudic depictions of demons are ADORABLE, we need a cartoon, stat 🤣

I appreciate the recommendations of reading material 28:28 seconds time stamp I will be ordering these and reading them for myself thank you.

[Edit: my silly input aside which I should have waited until actually watching and listening, an important facinating and ultimately heavy sobering topic delivered succinctly by Dr Justin Sledge!] My popular culture medium introduction to the Dybbuk is the intriguing Jeffrey Dean Morgan starring film and realizing there are earlier films over time had me thinking The Dybbuk is like the King Kong of esoteric horror films. The Golem as a subject has yet to be as prolific in its cinematic portrayals! (My insightful comment: Dybbuk...like King Kong.)

Came over from Let's Talk Religion...and just subscribed...

Immediately had to watch this.

Excellent, interesting, spooky ... thank you.

Most interesting. Shared.

The crazy thing about that necromantic practice of sleeping on graves was popular in ancient Celtic Druid circles.

Thank you!

The prayer of thanks for not beeing a woman, genteal or a slave, seem quite fundamental, to me as an outsider.🤔 If your a jew, christian or muslim you wich the best possible outcome for youre self: eternal life... 😇 ...And you expect death, or worse, for me. 🔥 So, how should we treat each other❓️

Do todays practitioners still believe in possession and reincarnation? As a 50 ish Jewish woman growing up in conservative Judaism, I’ve never heard about any of this. Love your channel.😊

Fantastic. Can you give a few pointers towards the relation between Dybbuk and the Kelipot and Sitra Achra? And another question if you don't mind: Is the animation of the Golem a form of Ibbur or Dybbuk? or is it an entreily different kind of beast? Thanks

Gosh, could you even imagine being born a slave, or even worse, a woman? I am still taken aback when hearing some of these things because of just the way it's phrased. Thanks Doc for really making esoteric history come alive and be profoundly entertaining. Your channel really is such a treasure and balances humor, knowledge, and real passion for these subjects. Biz hundert un tsvantsik!

The slot machine analogy was both very easy to understand and really funny

Thank you for taking time to share your knowledge. I began collecting religious books over the years. Sadly, some were borrowed/not returned- notably out of print book on Gnosticism. *Have you ever done a collectors book list for people like myself?* Thank you✌

Kabbahla seems to have taken some ideas from animism, especially with the idea of the soul having multiple parts or that a person can have multiple souls. spiritual pregnation is also an idea from animistic beliefs like spirit families and spirit spouses.

Thanks!

"Clay dungeons": Doc, you're a treasure.

Wonderful as always. Thank you for your hard work and research. If I may, I believe I found a slight error. The image that you show for the 1937 film The Dybbuk (around 9 minutes in) is actually not from that film. It's actually a still of actress Hanna Rovina from the 1920 production of The Dybbuk at the Habima Theater which was then located in Moscow. I believe the images you show at 18:00 and 22:00 are from the 1937 film starring Lili Liliana as Leah. The image at 27:40 is Hanna Rovina again with that amazing set design.

Thank you muhiem

I really wish you would transfer the audio from your episodes into a podcast format…

Very interesting....

Great video! I was wondering if you’d ever do a video on Zoroastrian influence on abrahamic religion?

Baruch Hashem!

Thank you

How do you understand the story of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov - The Lame One? - What is the meaning in that story of the Sun and Moon meeting to discuss their problems and the threat of the demons? Is there a source for the idea of a demon being able to take away a human being strength to be given to one of their own?

Interesting topic! What are the major differences between Rambams understanding of the ruah, nefesh, neshema vs. the Zohars explanation?

A righteous soul inhabiting another body to correct a wrong--a see a TV series here, perhaps with Dean Stockwell and Scott Bakula starring.

very cool.

Hmm..similar to Noahs flood is what i sensed about Katrina Hurricane (esp in New Orleans area.) African Ancestors reclaiming their descendants back since those in charge weren't really helping evacuate soon enough while they were living.

Ty

Bro looking like a Jewish Rasputin. Y'all content is epic

That picture of the dybbuk depicted as a shawl over a skeleton over a mans back is really scary. If you zoom in on the shawl where the skull and the spine go inside it, it looks like some kind of winged bat creature like a cenomorph or a symbiote from spiderman the ribcage of the skeleton even looks like sharp teeth and if you look close at the folds above the teeth it has a cycopular eye

The first time I heard Dybbuk was from the movie A Serious Man.

oh yeah the Lilith one is super interesting...Thanks Doc...

Thanks again for the good content. I had an idea yesterday, and it seems viable. The navajo skinwalker might be related to dybbuk. The great evil one must perform to become skinwalker should also be great enough evil to pull the soul out of that cycle of reincarnation. Is this seem like its correct or did i miss something

Hello, very interesting, thanks! I'm particularly interested in the process that involves the inhabitation of a righteous soul by another righteous soul. It makes me think of some shamanic technics that involve an ancestral spirit, sometimes the spirit of a deceased shaman, to possess temporarily (during ceremonies) the body of a living shaman, so that the ancestral spirit may provide information or perform healing (and in the meantime teach the shaman who's in the flesh, by showing how to do the work). There are such tells in the Toungouz tradition, also in theosophy (being overshadowed) and mediumship... Nowadays, I wonder if some cases of "channeling" might be the new way to speak of such phenomena (in a less scary way than by using the word posession)?

New sub here...TY 🤩

I like this soul soup idea. Pick your ingredients and make your human dish. Gastronomy doesn't get a good turn in most Abrahamic lore - quite the opposite

Did somebody say "Evil Dead?" Groovy.

🙏

Holy cow!

Fantastic video as always Justin. I am concerned what certain corners of internet would do with the concepts of soul impregnations tho lol. Anyway you mentioned how Judaism after the rise of Christianity largely shunned or buried the concept of malevolent possession but were there any notable accounts of possession before the rise of the dybbuk or was such events largely ignored?

נראה מגניב

Wow...how very interesting....yep

Actually The Testament of Solomon Recension C states explicitly the Solomonic demons are the ghosts of the Nephilim, and this idea is found in 1 Enoch itself, which tells us of the giants ghosts in Chapter 15, “Evil spirits proceed from their bodies, because they are created from above, and from the holy Watchers is their beginning and primal origin; they will be evil spirits on Earth, and evil spirits they will be named. And the spirits of heaven have their dwelling in heaven, but the spirits of the Earth, which were born upon the Earth, have their dwelling on the Earth. And the spirits of the giants will devour, oppress, destroy, attack, do battle, and cause destruction on the Earth, and work affliction.” See Also the Book of Jubilees chapter 10, which alludes to this, and Eusebius, while a Christian source, gives a Euhemerist interpretation of the ghosts of giants, being the ghosts of the "mighty men" or Pagan heroes of old, but also the Pagan gods... "“For one might say that these daemons are those giants, and that their spirits have been defiled by the subsequent generations of men, and that their battles, and their quarrels among themselves, and their wars are the subjects of these legends that are told as of gods.” The Gnostics on the other hand clearly interpreted the Watchers and Nephilim as like their Archons, (see On the Origin of the World, Apocryphon of John and Hypostasis of the Archons in particular, but there are other references) which is especially intriguing given Christian Heresiologists explaining Gnostics were very concerned about wet dreams, and succubus like demons, and how this creats a kind of metaphysical child, causing the Gnostic parent to have to reincarnate... Given what you said about Gilgul, that seems like too much of a coincedence to me, so while there is a large gap in time from Gnostics to this Dybbuk traditions, or the Jewish texts you cite, somehow it must all be connected. (Scholem does say Gnostics influenced Kabbalah after all) I actually suspect it has to do with the Golem legends, as synonymous Gnostic term "hylics" so that archons possess those without Gnosis, causing reincarnation. Since Gnostics were influenced by Hermeticism, which also deals with similar ideas in Kore Kosmou, where all of humanity is the fallen star angels, I suspect a Hermetic and Neoplatonic influence on Gnostics and one way or another also these Gilgul ideas.. Ie the Archons are like Thumos, "passions" weighing down the soul, an idea not unlike Philo's interpretation of Giants, though he blames the women, as personifications of materialist desire, and the watchers are more like human souls! So in context, this is more like Kore Kosmou, which has definite similarities to the above Gnostic texts I cited. The Corpus Hermeticum tells us strait up, daimons play human brains like instruments... The Role of Jesus then, is to exorcize the Nephilim ghosts, though in the Solomonic grimoires, taking Catholic influence, it seems they have to work off their sins, paying penitence, by helping Solomonic magicians perform magick on behalf of the church. The Discoverie of Witchcraft explains a magician should use necromancy to contact a human soul, who will itself contact demons for the magician, in exchange for prayers on his behalf from the magician, for forgiveness, but many of the 72 demons want repentence explicitly. Christians debated whether demons did magick, or impersonated ghosts, or vice versa, there being a variety of interpretations, due to Eusebius and Augustine and other conflicting sources after the Book of Enoch was censored by Christians

DNA- genetic celluar memory (?) (Spiritual data... E-bore)

so dybbuk is connected to devekut too?

Faith in the Emperor is the only way

Algormancy!

❤❤❤

Wouldn't allowing the dead to speak from one's own mouth render one as being a Yidoni?

Maybe God drowned people in the Flood because they knew some crucial and dangerous truth about Him, and spared Noah because he didn't. Perhaps God saved Noah for his specific ignorance, not for his special knowledge?

Very interesting. A question. Why are dybbuks contained in boxes? How do they escape such boxes?

Barzak is a word for Islam; of where the roam; of the dead soul resides . Until judgement day.

Justin, are there any books and articles on this subject you'd recommend?

Go ahead and hate but I liked Ole Bornedal film "The Possession".