Between Worlds. J. H. Chajes

and tell me his name in this circle that I have drawn in your honor ….

      Immediately they will tell you his name and the name of his father and the name of his mother aloud; do not fear them.

      Immediately recite this adjuration in such a way:

      I adjure you the demon so-and-so, by the utterance of the watchers and the holy ones [cf. Dan. 4:14] by YHVH God of the Heavens, with these names I adjure you the demon so-and-so, son of so-and-so and so-and-so, that you now enter this flask immediately and immediately the flask will turn red. Immediately say to him these five names YHV YHV …. That demon will immediately cry a great and bitter cry from the great pressure; do not believe him until he swears by YUD HA VAV HA explicitly.⁵⁰ Then leave him alone and pay him no further heed.⁵¹

      This procedure again contains familiar elements, many of them ubiquitous in exorcism techniques. Hardware requirements are minimal—the standard glass flask, common in Arabic magic for these types of applications, and a white candle. Holy angels and demonic spirits are adjured by the exorcist, enlisted to assist him by forcing the penetrating demon to disclose his name and the names of his parents. Once the demon has been named, it becomes vulnerable to adjurations that force its departure and subsequent capture in the flask. At this point, with the demon quite literally in the exorcist’s hands, the exorcist makes his final adjurations and is “left alone.” Although this formula does not include instructions for disposing of the flask, options ranged from disposal in a barren place to a thorough rinsing in water.

      In all, exorcism techniques preserved in late medieval Hebrew manuscripts indicate that little had changed since antiquity. Comprising both adjurations and operations based upon the occult properties of objects, these exorcism techniques blend natural and demonic magic to full effect.⁵² Moreover, the ceremonies retain the theatrical power that had made them the miracles par excellence of antiquity. This theatricality and the powerful impression made by public exorcisms almost certainly led to the interest in their control by elites, no less than it did to their success as a healing modality.⁵³