Some online resources for the study of Jewish magic

From the Jewish Encyclopedia of 1904, which has been put on line: the article on Amulets is by Ludwig Blau.

From the YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe: Amulets and Talismans (by Avriel Bar-Levav). It includes pictures of several amulets on paper. In the same encyclopedia, see also the articles on Magic, Ba'ale Shem, and Demons.

Article on the finding of a Jewish amulet from the 3rd century CE in a child's grave in the Austrian city of Halbturn.

Article by Dan Levene on Aramaic incantation bowls. He discusses one of the bowls that uses the get formula to expel demons. Here's a link to a photograph of the bowl - http://www.edshare.soton.ac.uk/5331/.

Virtual Magic Bowl Archive at the University of Southampton (created by Dan Levene).

Traditions of Magic in Late Antiquity online exhibit at the University of Michigan.

A printing plate for an amulet from Slovakia (1832). The amulet is against Lilith, to protect the mother and new-born child. From the website of the Center for Jewish Art at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

A short blog post on one of the Babylonian magical bowls held by the University of Pennsylvania museum (from Nippur - published by Montgomery).  It's a very nice photograph of the bowl.

Speaking of Montgomery, his Aramaic Incantation Texts (1913) is also now available from Google Books as a PDF download - very handy. The bowl mentioned in the blog post above is #2 in Montgomery's book.

Religious experience and mysticism

April DeConick, in her excellent Forbidden Gospels Blog, has an interesting discussion of a new article by Peter Schäfer on the question of religious experience and mystical texts. As April notes, in his writing on the Hekhalot literature Schäfer has usually emphasized the importance of viewing early Jewish mystical literature as coming out of an "exegetical impulse" and not out of personal religious experience. While I agree with Schäfer that we need to look at both the ritual (usually called "magical") and the mystical aspects of the Hekhalot literature, I think that he goes overboard in his emphasis on exegesis. I agree with April in her approach: "My own approach is to consider the intersection of these two aspects, and to take very seriously the mystical tradition as a living practiced religious tradition." Anyway, read her blog posting - it's a very interesting and worthwile discussion of how to define early Jewish (and Christian) mysticism.