The Life Cycle of Dybbuk Possession in Judaism

Abstract

Abstract The historical trajectory of the dybbuk, the Jewish variant of spirit possession, begins in the sixteenth century and declines at the beginning of the twentieth century. The dybbuk emerged in an “ecological niche” where the mystical doctrines of gilgul (the transmigration of souls) and ibbur (impregnation) became widespread, and the body became the object of scrutiny and control. Increased secularization removed the dybbuk from public view, yet Ansky’s play The Dybbuk: Between Two Worlds appeared just as cases of dybbuk possession disappeared. In the last twenty years, several cases of dybbuk possession were publicly exorcised in Israel; thus the Jewish variant of spirit possession that disappeared at the beginning of the twentieth century has been resurfacing since the end of that century. Such new cases, which for the first time can be studied directly rather than through texts, shed new light on the nature and dynamics of dybbuk possession.