April 6, 2025 • 51 mins
We're excited to welcome back Peter Bebergal. This time we're talking about mysticism and dybbuks. Be sure and check out the links below including the upcoming talk Peter is giving April 14th for The Last Tuesday Society.
Peter on Jewish Boston podcast
All the Haunts Be Ours (affiliate link) 15-Disk Horror Collection
The Ibbur from Jewish mysticism
Peter will be talking monster culture for The Last Tuesday Society on April 14th at 3 pm ET - check it out
Grab all of Peter's Books at Amazon and support this show!
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/monstertalk--6267523/support.
Some product links may be affiliated with Amazon revenue sharing.
Peter on Jewish Boston podcast
All the Haunts Be Ours (affiliate link) 15-Disk Horror Collection
The Ibbur from Jewish mysticism
Peter will be talking monster culture for The Last Tuesday Society on April 14th at 3 pm ET - check it out
Grab all of Peter's Books at Amazon and support this show!
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/monstertalk--6267523/support.
Some product links may be affiliated with Amazon revenue sharing.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Monster House Presents.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
It's actually quite unlike anything we've ever seen before. A giant,
very creature party part in Luckness, a twenty four a
mile long bottomless lake in the Highlands of Scotland. It's
a creature known as the Luckness Monster. Monster Talk.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Welcome to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters. I'm
Blake Smith.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
And I'm Karen Stolsner.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Hey, they're muster Talkers. Today we're going to be chatting
with Peter Biebergall, whose work in monsters, culture, religion and
magic has a ton of overlap with our own interest
here on this show. We snagged him because of a
recent talk he gave on Jewish mysticism and the occult.
But as you'll hear in our interview, he's also working
on a new book project that's also going to be
right up our alley. In fact, he's giving a talk
(01:23):
on April fourteenth for the Last Tuesday Society, which sounds
like it's on the same sort of topic, and I'll
put a link to that in the show notes. But
if you love monsters, Peter's work is going to be
right up your alley. This app is a little bit
over stuff, so let's just bite right into it.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
More Monstertal.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Tonight, we welcome back Peter bieber Gall, an author whose
books you really should check out if you enjoy this
show because a lot of his content overlaps, and we've
had on Peter before to discuss the occult in rock
and roll as well as technologi's role in proving the supernatural,
and those were refend his book Season of the Witch
and Strange Frequencies. But many of you would also appreciate
(02:05):
the work he did pulling together the many core texts
that influenced Gary Geygax's Dungeons and Dragons and a volume
that's called Appendix in so if you check their show notes,
we'll have links to all that stuff. Peter also did
commentary on a recent DVD for the twenty fifteen Holyish
film Demon. He did an essay called in the Shadow
(02:25):
of the dipoc and he also did a talk at
Morbid Anatomy, which for if you don't know more of
an anatomy.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
It's been a.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Blog, it's been a museum, it's been a library, and
now it continues to exist online and hosts classes and
lectures as well as other content in the real world,
and it has a very similar vibe to the Order
of the Good Death, which I gather is not actually
a coincidence. I believe the person who organized more of
an anatomy is also a founder of the Order of
the Good Death. So some very interesting people gathered together
(02:55):
doing really interesting things, and you got involved with it, Peter,
and you did a talk called Demons and Dibbicks, Magic
and the Occult in the Jewish World, And we're excited
to have you back, but let's start out with how
did your talk go?
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah, I've always enjoyed speaking with you both, and you've
just always been such a cheerleader of my work, been
really appreciative over the years of that and fans of yours,
so it's mutual. Yeah, to talk went really well. I
felt like there was a good there was a good audience,
and I know there was more registrations than people that
(03:28):
were there, but folks who registered could watch the lecture after,
and I think that's just the way of things now too,
and very generous, gracious crowd. People seem to have a
lot of good ideas of their own. So there was
a fairly lively Q and A at the end, and
(03:49):
Joana Ebenstein who hosts and runs More of an Anatomy.
She's a delight and it was really great too do
this with her. I've done couple things with Morbid Anatomy
over the years. In fact, my first public talk of
Season of the Witch was at More of Anatomy when
(04:10):
it was the actual physical museum in Brooklyn, which was
an incredible space at the time.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
I love the name Morbid Anatomy. That's a cool name. Well,
today we're going to talk about your divic research, but
could we start with how you learned about these entities?
Speaker 2 (04:31):
I learned well. So it's a complicated story for me
because I grew up very secular jew We had some
minor holiday observances, but I was also later just because
(04:51):
it made practical sense for my parents at the time
and where we lived. They they wanted me to be
bar mitzvad. My brother had been barmitzvah, but they weren't
part of a synagogue, so they I was able to
get lessons in Hebrew and Torah through the Rabbat house
(05:12):
which was in Miami, Florida, which where we were near
we were living at the time, and so my bar
mitzra was done through the Orthodox with some called ultra
Orthodox Jewish community, which for them they were what's part
of the Labovita set of Abbaud Judaism. So I had
(05:35):
this whole other experience with very rigorous, deeply observant Judaism
next to my very secular Jewish life as a you know,
in my family. And I have to say what's interesting
is on the side of my family, I learned a
(05:58):
lot of superstitions. My mother was incre incredibly superstitious, and
it was very important that we adhered to those growing up.
You know, if you throw if you spill salt, you
have to throw it over your shoulder, you know, all
the things. But with the with the ultra Orthodox, there
(06:21):
was almost none of that. So in terms of my
own early relationship as somebody who's Jewish to these things,
there was very little except for the sort of superstitions
which a sum which came sort of out of Eastern
European jewelry, and then this ultra Orthodoxy, which is where
(06:42):
in fact a lot of the notions about magic and
the cult actually live within weren't presented to me either.
So but I was always a kid. I probably talked
about this on your show before that was interested in
magic and the supernatural and monsters and science fiction and fantasy,
(07:04):
and so it was. I was always sort of coming
across some of these things, like I knew what the
golam was. And I have to say, there's sort of
a jump in time. But the first, the first thing
that happened to me when I started to understand that
there was a relationship between magic and Judaism was when
(07:26):
I was probably fourteen years old. I were fifteen years old.
Now I was back in Libya, Massa Jusetts went to Salem,
went to this to Lori Cabot's bookstore. In fact, I'm
sure people are familiar with Salem, which life know of
Lori Cabot and she I went to her bookstore and
(07:48):
I found this book called This Key of Solomon the King,
Oh yeah, which is, you know, one of the essential
Western magical grimoires, translated by MacGregor Mathers now during the
Hermetic word of the Golden Dawn period. And I was
(08:08):
really interested, you know, Intullians and dragons, and so I
had this idea that this was a real book of
a spell book, a magician's spell book that was ancient,
felt really compelling. So I saved my money and I
went back, I bought this book, and one of the
things that struck me, you know, a year or so
(08:29):
after my bar Mitzvah, was that so much of the
text was in Hebrew, and that a lot of the
references were to a which we would maybe say an
Old Testament. I wouldn't necessarily use that term, but you know,
a Hebrew or Jewish relationship to God as opposed to say,
(08:54):
a Christian one. Nice and not a pagan one either,
like decide you're right, very important, you know, not and
not in that sense in that broad sense that we
use the word pagan. But so that that always stuck
with me, and then later just you know, in school,
I studied, you know, I studied religion, and so these
(09:16):
were always part of my always part of the landscape
of my imagination, of my research and my scholarship and
all the things that I've done over the years. But
I never really took a deep dive into it until
probably I started doing some work for a couple of
(09:42):
online Jewish magazines at the time. You know, it's funny
to talk about the Internet and to talk about internet writing,
and that that golden age of Internet scenes you know,
and so there was a there was a great one
called Zeke, and there was Next Book, which I think
(10:03):
got subsumed into Tablet Magazine. Anyways, I was doing a
couple of things for you know, so there was always
something that I wanted to write about. So I was
always educating myself on this material, and so that whenever
there was an opportunity to do something where I could
really do a deep dive, I would always jump at it.
And so most recently was when Seven Films who put
(10:28):
out the re release of The Demon as part of
their box set of folk horror Films. This but they're
sort of volume two and make sure I get the
name of that of that right.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Yeah, that looked really red at my alley and I
noticed they outside Psychomania, which.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Is Psychomania Boy, that death film. When I was a kid.
That was really incredible to see when you're like eleven
years old.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
It's a ride and that's not a motorcycle point the
movies A rise.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Really Yeah, it's so good. Anyway, we'll we'll have to
talk about that.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Another time, but yes, absolutely it is a really good film.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
So in any case, that was so when they had
asked if I wanted to be a part of this
and to do something related to this film The Demon,
which is an incredible Polish film. Oh all the Haunts,
so just again get this right. So this is the
(11:39):
second volume of All the Haunts be Hours, which is
a companion of folk horror films, and the film The
Demon is a Polish film about a Jewish man marrying
into a non Jewish but Polish family which already has
(12:01):
some potential tensions there in Poland, and he becomes baby
possessed by a Dibock. It's a remarkable film. I highly
recommend it, and if you're going to spend the money
on it, I would just get the buck set and
(12:23):
get all the great other films. But also that there's
all this included extra stuff that comes with it. And
one of those things that which is what Searon asked
me to do, was to do a one of those
commentary extras for the DVD of that film.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
To talk about familiar with those yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Yeah, exactly, to talk about the history of the dibock
as as a concept. And so to do that, you know,
I had to sort of do a sort of my
own mini refresher course for myself about some of that material,
and it was it started to remind me of some
(13:05):
things that I had briefly come across over the years.
But when I started to dig a little deeper, just
really opened up a rich universe of material that I
knew in some ways, like I said, but had never
quite tried to put together in a fully formed study
(13:29):
of it, at least, you know, at a very high level.
I mean this is not a deep textual you know,
look at these things, but just in terms of a
general overview, to start bringing all these disparate things together
as Judaism relates to the occult and the supernatural.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Well, it's such a fun process to go from light
familiarity to starting to be able to make connections and
sort of synthesize what it all means exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
That's really the best part of research, I think.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Now, we've discussed the dipic on this show before, but
as part of our series we've done called the base
on a true story and we dug into the movie
The Possession and the Alleged Case. And yes that is
a pun intended this fall, but can you introduce dipics
to our listeners. Let's assume that they have never seen
(14:23):
a depic movie, and they don't know what a dipic is.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Bring it, what we got here? What are we dealing with?
Speaker 2 (14:30):
So I think you do, and this is one of
the things I learned is you do have to sort
of go back a little bit to know to be
able to understand that the idea of that dipic doesn't
exist in a vacuum, that it exists within a framework
of a worldview in some corners of Judaism, mostly Eastern European,
(14:55):
that is haunted by all manner of spirits and demons
and ghosts and golams and magic spells and seers and
witches and dibics. Right, So it's it's not just Judaism
doesn't have any supernatural law, except now we have the dipick.
(15:18):
And that's the one thing Judaism has. It's a it's
one of us. It's one member of a whole order
of ideas and entities that basically has to do ultimately
with the idea that these folk traditions, that the live tradition.
(15:47):
And this is true of all religion, but we're talking
about in the context of Judaism, that the lived experience
of religious people can often be very different or sometimes
in in in theological opposition to or practical opposition to
(16:08):
the normative texts, or say the hierarchies or the the
established establishment as it were. Right, So, the Bible says,
you are not supposed to talk spirits, you're not supposed
to talk to witches, not supposed to be a necromancer.
(16:29):
Very clear prohibitions against that kind of activity. I can
just give you, you know, sort of one of the
high level ones, which is from Leviticus, which says, and
if any person turns to ghosts and familiar spirits and
(16:50):
goes astray after them, I will set my face against
that person and cut him off from among his people.
But the Bible itself has stories of people doing just that,
and in fact, one of my favorite, one of the
most well known, is in the Book of Samuel. Samuels
(17:12):
died and Saul wants to speak to his spirit, so
he goes to find the Witch of Endor to ask
her to conjure his spirit. And there's this really great
moment in that story where when he finds the Witch
of Endor and asks her this, even she says, well, buddy,
we're not supposed to do this. You're trying to get
me in trouble like I. Even she knew the prohibition.
(17:37):
And so even there we get this beautiful, almost candid
look at, here's the law and here's the live the
way people lived right within this obviously long time apart
in terms of when the text were written, probably, but
just in you know, just in terms of an understanding
(17:59):
of those two things things. So that's that. Then we
already know that for most religions there is usually some
related form of magical or what we might call spiritualist practice,
(18:21):
right whether it involves charms to protect yourself against demonic forces,
or some kind of divination to foretell the future, or
the attempt to communicate with spirits to gain some information
(18:42):
of some kind. And so when we look at the Talmud,
which is the commentary on the oral tradition of Judaism
called the mid Rush, we see all kinds of debates
amongst the rabbis about ghosts and demons, and there's very
little about whether or not they're real or not. The
(19:03):
question is never, is never our demons real? The question
is how should we deal with the fact that demons
are real? So there's a thing about how it says
the prohibition isn't that you shouldn't try to communicate with
a demon. The prohibition is it's a warning that you
(19:26):
shouldn't communicate with a demon because the information that they
give you is probably going to be a lie. So
so it's almost like they kind of fall back a
little bit, recognizing the way in which people lived that
there was no way they were going to be able
to control that. So they said, Okay, well, we know
people are going to do this, so let's at least
(19:47):
make sure they do it safely, right in some way.
So I just I say all that just to say that,
you know, to talk about the diboc is to also
just talk about a whole understanding and judaism of the
role in some corners, the role of spirits, the role
(20:08):
of demons, the role of those who may be able
to communicate with them is a really important thing to understand.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
Well, Peter, you've talked a bit about the Old Testament
and the taln mode. So how far back do these
dibics go.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Well, I don't know about this. So there's always the
idea of ghosts and spirits. The Talma talks about ghosts.
There's some really funny stories about the spirit tells another
somebody who's alive to tell their daughter to tell this
(20:55):
other person to get her combs because she knows that
person is going to die, and the spirit wants her
combs that she had when she was alive to make
sure she brings them to the afterlife with her. So
there's all these little funny stories about what's really the
question is what do the dead know? That's sort of
the question that the rabbis ask. So this idea of
(21:17):
ghosts and spirits has already built in the idea of
the dipic is very interesting because the dipic is a
story of possession more than just a free floating spirits
in its own right, if that makes sense. And so
(21:40):
one of the things is that there is a lot
of these rise out of out of folk tales, right,
And it's possible that what you often get in these
folk traditions is people trying to make sense, often of
(22:02):
other kinds of how do I say, inscrutable things that
might be happening, right, A particular kind of I mean,
it's with any times that people have blamed spirit possession
on maybe somebody who was epileptic or right had other
kinds of illness, it couldn't be explained, especially when children
(22:25):
are ill trying to make sense of that. So one
of the things also has to do though, that there
is some part of Jewish lore that has to do
with reincarnation, this idea of Gilgoul that the souls will return.
(22:46):
And one of the ideas is that some souls are
they're like the off the almost righteous, like they almost
became a saint, but there were a few things that
they needed to do, like one last good deed they
needed to do to complete their cycle of life maybe
(23:09):
or you know, so sometimes in what was called an
ibor would possess somebody so that they could then go
and do a good deed even though they had already died,
which would then be part of their you know, would
then be written into the book of life for them. Right,
(23:31):
But some are some of these spirits are restless or angry,
and so these dipik they the so ib or could
be seen as a blessing. If you're possessed by an
ebor and you go and in that body, in your body,
the ibor does a good deed, then that's a great
thing that's happened, almost like you did a mitzvah. It's
(23:54):
like you did a good deed to let the spirit
use your body so that they could, you know, do
the right thing. But the dibik is something that tends
to be the idea of is restless or angry. And
in fact, the word dybbuk comes from the Hebrew term
(24:14):
which means to cling to something. So even in the
name itself is this idea of something, of something that's
not great, that's latched on, maybe in a way that
you didn't that you didn't want. And so one of
(24:37):
the earliest stories is a seventeenth century story also called
the Possession, and a young man is possessed by a
So a man is lost at c a sailor was
lost at sea. His body was never found, so his
(24:58):
wife cannot remarry. So the spirit of the man lost
at sea possesses another young man to try to convince
the rabbis that he is indeed dead, even though they
don't have a body, so that his wife can legally remarry.
(25:19):
Because in the Jewish law, if there's if you can't
prove the person's dead, then by all all accounts, you're
still married, and so you can't get married again, right,
And so a lot of typic stories tend to revolve
around this idea of marriage, and so this is one
(25:42):
of the ways in which you know, these are related
to and like a lot of folk tales, are related
to moments of transition right in somebody's life. So the
most common one that we see is that of a
(26:03):
male a male spirit in the body of a in
the body of a woman, and it's often that she's
about to be married, or maybe she is a widow.
And there is whole texts that can be found. Some
(26:25):
of these are being archived online, very early texts that
actually give you the account of how the rabbis went
about trying to exercise the spirit of the diboc from
the person.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Could could this it all be? This sounds a little metaphorical,
but I mean in the sense that it is in
these accounts. Are is it pretty clear that the person
previously had wanted the marriage and then suddenly changed or
is this more of an arranged situation and that the
person is resisting the marriage and it has to be
(27:03):
attributed to a demon like I.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Just I don't know. I mean, I think a lot,
you know, a lot of it is you know, some
would argue that it's a challenge to a woman's potentially
bursioning sexual life, or or maybe the implication is that
(27:26):
they weren't, you know, they had already been with somebody before,
and so it's a kind of a punishment of that.
Like it's like a like only a woman who had,
you know, you know, slept with somebody before their marriage
would be susceptible to that or something. You know. So
there's I don't think it's so it's hard to know
(27:50):
what for what purpose the story would be told. In
that very early story that I told you about, one
of the one of my favorite parts of that tale
is that the it becomes a story about the hubris
of the rabbis, not about the person who is possessed
(28:13):
at all. And there's this great that are trying to
exercise him, and there's this great moment where the debick
is trying to you know, the rabbits are asking how
do we know you're really what you say you are?
And he starts revealing secrets about them.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Oh nice, Yeah, that's always good stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Yeah. And one of the things he reveals about one
of the rabbis is and this is this I think
actually speaks to a number of really interesting things that
we can talk about. But one of the things that
he says is to the rabbi, to one of the rabbis,
(29:00):
is there, you know, hey, that one over there he
lay with a man, and that's as bad bad is marrying,
as lame with a married one. But what's interesting about
that for me is that he's not that sin of
a man laying with a man isn't somehow then relegate
(29:23):
as being worse than anything else. It's actually equated with
any other sin, right, in a sense, like you laid
with a woman that wasn't your wife, you laid with
a man, You did this, you did that, And so
there's this almost equitable understanding of sin, and which is
(29:47):
very different of the way we often talk about those
things today. Right, we've decided that some are greater than
others based on some criteria that I don't know personally,
but yeah, right, But in this case we see that
there is at least within you know, a tradition.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
First among equals, right, exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
So it wasn't like then they all turned to him
and say, you lay with her, man, get out of here.
We don't even want your part of this conversation any
you know, it's all off. It's just he was just
pointing out that they are all sinners, right, but trying
to somehow then claim that they knew more than he
(30:33):
did as a trying to convince them that he was
the spirit of this dead husband.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
Right earlier, Peter, you were talking about amulets, Yes, and
so I'm wondering what are the kinds of things that
people used to repel or protect themselves against divics?
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Yep, so I most ambulets, believe it or not, are
not usually forgibbicks. I mean, there might be some, but
I think for the most part they were to ward
off they were either good luck charms or they were
to ward off evil spirits, mostly Lilith. I would say
(31:15):
the vast majority, it seems of at least the ambulance
I've seen and studied, I have to do with Lilith
and protecting the protection of a child or pregnant woman.
Our Fraser creative exactly. Well, Seattle, we have a celebrity
(31:37):
of sorts on the line. This is my ex wife, Lilith.
What do you mean by celebrity? Oh, they know you.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
I have a little this is a little Lucy Goosey question,
But thinking about you mentioned the Key of Solomon and
thinking about the legends of Solomon using demons to control
them with a reing and get things accomplished, Like that's
a demons as workers, yes, versus demons as possessors, versus
(32:10):
demons as oppressors. These are the Are these different entities
in these stories or are they all.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Trying to say it's how I think they're all. I mean.
One of the interesting things is in the story of Solomon,
one of the stories of one of the one of
the tales of Solomon, when he so Solomon's trying to
build his temple, he finds out that there's this worm
called a schmir that can shemir, that can that can
cut the blocks really perfectly. It's a giant worm. And
(32:41):
as he understands it, as Modius, king of the demons,
knows where this worm is, but he has to first
find Asmodius, so he conjures up these other demons to
torment them as magicians are wanted, you know, often do
when they're binding demons to get them to respond curses
(33:08):
and bindings, asking where Asmodius is, and the the demons say, well,
he can either be he's only in one of two places.
He's either in Heaven in the study halls, or he's
on Earth in the study halls. So there's no, he's
not a demon of Hell. These are still divine entities
(33:35):
part of God's great universe, right, nothing separated from there.
So there isn't this, there's no idea, there's no notion
in Judaism when talking about these demons as fallen angels
or fallen beings in that sense. I mean, I do know,
you know, we have this idean Enoch, which is you know,
(33:59):
a which is the Gnostic text, which make a larger,
deeper mythology about the one mention of the nepheline that
we find in Genesis.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Right, yeah, No, no troublesome Internet people ever came from
reading the Book of Enich.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Never exactly this one little thing in Genesis that says,
you know, the sons of God married the daughters of men. Yeah,
and then they're giants. But again, there's nothing later in
rabbinical text or anything that I know of that describes
these things as fallen angels that are now demons or devils,
(34:42):
and so so the idea that as Modius the King
of the demons is still spending his time studying Torah
in heaven, you know, or studying in you know, on earth.
Is a perfectly Jewish idea of the nature the universe. Right,
the angels and the demons and anything that has anything
(35:04):
to do with God. All they really want to do
is just study Torah, right, That's the thing, so he
had So that's the So embedded in these folk tales,
in these legends are all these other ways of understanding
a broader picture of a kind of Jewish conception of
(35:24):
the universe and of how these entities interact with each other.
I mean, this goes back to, you know, complicated, the
whole complicated issue of who the Satan is in job right,
not anything connected to Lucifer or a fallen creature of
any kind, but rather a figure that exists within the
(35:47):
heavenly court that can chat with God and make plans
and scheme and try to bother this poor guy who
is trying to mind his own business, right job. So
we have these entities and the way in which they exist.
(36:08):
You know. Again, this idea that that we learned from
the rabbis that it's not that you shouldn't talk to demons.
It's just that they're probably going to lie to you.
So that's why you should be wary. This idea, and
even the idea of the Dibok possession I don't think
(36:30):
necessarily is about an evil entity in the way that
we think about demonic possession and sort of a more
Christian concept. I think it's a you know, a troubled spirit.
It's more like the way maybe the idea of the poltergeist, right,
(36:50):
which is something that just hasn't figured out how to
move on. But the term possession tends to immediately, you know,
trigger the idea of like a demon in that evil
exorcist sense.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
Right, Yeah, which, as we know from that film, you know,
possessions nine tenths of the lore.
Speaker 4 (37:17):
Just old day.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
But it's true. It's true.
Speaker 4 (37:27):
I'd have to say that. I think when a lot
of people think about the depic nowadays, they think about
the depict box. And Blake had mentioned the position earlier.
Uh so, what what is the debic box? Is that
a real belief that anyway?
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Why the guy decided who came up with that, that
it would be a debt box, you know? But so
somebody posted on eBay that he had this box that
he was told was contained a dipic. I imagine the
two of you might even know more about it than
I do.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
We we know it's been thoroughly debunked at this point,
but the.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Thing is that it doesn't really align itself with any
Jewish lore about gibbecks.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
There we go.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
Yeah, it's so interesting, but then that's where people know
it from.
Speaker 4 (38:19):
I mean, that's the all I know.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
What I was curious about.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
I don't know if you've done any looking into this,
and this would be a lot of work to figure out,
but I'm wondering if there are now more gentile reports
of dibbicks. Since these films were so influential, it does,
you know, being raised in Judaism sort of does it
inoculate you from the pop culture version.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
I don't know, you know.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Because again because if I was raising it, but I
didn't know anything about them as a kid, it wasn't
part of our lore. I mean, and I don't think
for most you know, most Jews an immigrated from Eastern Europe,
depending well depending on when, if those if those things
were brought with them. Maybe in the more orthodox communities
(39:08):
where these folk tales and superstitions were more embedded in
the in just sort of the communities, right. But my
family when they, you know, came over from Poland and
Russia at the turn of the century, they had no interest,
you know, except, like I said, from my mother's own
(39:29):
latent superstitions that they wanted to be wholly modern Jews.
And if they even knew what a dippick was, they
would say, that's ridiculous. Right. But you know, but if
you ask my mother, there's you know, if you ask
my mother, you know, she would say, well you should
(39:50):
they should still be careful, right exactly.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
Yeah, yeah, your comments about the Greater you were talking
about the Greater Key of Solomon, right, there's the lesser key,
the Greater Creator.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Yes, yeah, this was the one the book that I
had with the Key of Solomon the King would Yes,
that's I guess that's considered the Creator King. The lesser
than includes the goesha.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Right, yes, exactly, yeah, yeah, yes, we talked about it.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
We did a little bit in the Western Esso Terroticism
and Magic series that we've been slowly creeping through.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
I just it struck me, like you know, of course,
I grew up evangelical and it was always implied that
if you know, just even looking at a spell book
was you know, the path to hell. And so when
I finally got around to actually cracking some open and
discovered how deeply immersed they are in either Judaic or
(40:54):
Christian framing, like, it really surprised me.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
Like it's not I always expect to be.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
Now, take your baby, make sure it's on baptized, get
the fat, and here's how you make the flying part.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
It's nothing like that at all.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
It's it's about through the power of God or through
the power of Christ, you'll be able to command these
demons to accomplish these feats. And it's like, how is it,
one wonders, I mean, you know that that so many
people are afraid of these things and never even bother
to see if there's anything there to be afraid of exactly.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
I mean, that's and I think that that's what happens
with again, the lived experience is often that you know,
we also have to understand that in the context of
history of Judaism, and not not to you know, single
it out necessarily, but yes, maybe to single out a
little bit, which is that when we talk about amulets
(41:50):
and what people are trying to do with an amulet. Well,
there are all these very real things that are at
the gates coming to get you, right, whether it's a
pogram or whatever, whatever kind of potential anti Semitic violence
could be coming your way. And as a very religious person,
(42:14):
how those things become absorbed into a broader understanding of
the universe and the forces a raid against you. It
makes sense that you would think a magical ambulant might
protect you from all evil things that want to harm you, right,
(42:40):
And so a lot of these things are born out
of a kind of you know, almost a necessity of
feeling like you have to protect yourself and your family.
And there's a lot of things, both real and supernatural,
that our potential dangers.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
That reminds me of Binny from The Mummy, the character
who's got a little religious amulet from everything, and when
things start to go sour, starts just quoting and you know,
sighting and praying in every language and.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Protecting. It's a ship of butches over his fluff.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
You know, job.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
Exactly exactly, yes. But but this idea of the religious
element is really important too, because one of the important
Jewish magical Texas called the Sepherharazine, and it's a it's
a it's an instruction manual basically about ascending the levels
of the seven levels of heaven, the seven stages of heaven,
(44:00):
and each one along the way you encounter a group
of you encounter the angels that govern that layer, and
you are taught certain magical procedures and spells, and when
you've mastered those, you move on to the next, into
the next, into the next, And there are names of
(44:23):
all the angels written out, and it's very complicated, and
it's a really beautiful text, just the poetry of the
descriptions of the heavens and the various angelic beings. But
when you get to the seventh level, you would think, Okay,
this is where the most powerful magic is going to be, right,
(44:44):
this is where I'll be able to you know, command
armies and you know, have all my greatest desires fulfilled.
But in fact you go through all this work, all
this all this sort of magical ritual process and and
work to get to the seventh heaven, and the entirety
(45:05):
of that part of the text is just a devotional
prayer to God. So the almost the idea is once
you get there. You don't even need magic anymore. It's
irrelevant to what the true purpose is, which is this
you uniting with the one, right, So there's almost a
(45:27):
lesson there, like, haha, we tricked you, We made you
think this was the important thing, but yeah, we were
just you know, we knew this would bait you to
get you interested in what we're really here to teach you,
which is how to work, how to properly be devoted
to God.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
I'm sure it's no coincidence so much that sounds like
Star Trek's idea of ascension. I think you know the
characters who turn into light beings that you know, become.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
These Yeah, absolutely exactly.
Speaker 3 (46:01):
Yeah, they've just processed a wigh, the need for the
flesh and any of that stuff, and just yeah, so
not to confuse with Q and you know, we don't.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
Giant Star Trek sidetracks. Sorry about that, but.
Speaker 4 (46:15):
Well, Peter, we should start to wrap things up. And
you're always working on something interesting, so we wanted to
ask you what you're working on now, what's coming next?
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Yeah, well, I'm working out some I don't really think
would be of interest to you, to either of you,
but I'm actually writing a book right now to be
published by the University California Press on cultural history of
monsters and monster movies from the sixties and the seventies. No, yeah, yeah,
(46:47):
so I'm looking so, you know, the sort of the
monster Kid, the Creature feature Kids.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
So famous monsters of film Land and Aurora monster models.
Oh my gosh, yes, sort of positioning that moment within
the within this idea of you know, the late sixties
and seventies is an age of anxiety and and how
monsters sort of provided a kind of enchanted mythos for
(47:17):
young people, especially who are trying to navigate the what
seemingly by osmosis anxieties they were picking up from their
parents and the and the and the greater world and
the wider world.
Speaker 1 (47:30):
Well that sounds awesome. Yeah, what you're saying.
Speaker 4 (47:34):
Is we're going to have to bring you back on again.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
You know, I got to meet for sacrament a few times.
I got to go to really toured the ac mansion,
the whole thing. Oh my gosh, yeah, it's just what
he was.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
He kind of a grumpy guy or what.
Speaker 3 (47:52):
Oh my gosh, no, No, it was super friendly. I mean,
the only awkward moment was he lets you tour the
house for free, and at the end he kind of
does the you know, puts his hat out moment, and
I was really poor, so I felt a little bad
that I didn't have much to put in the hat.
But I mean, my god, you know, it was his
(48:14):
house was amazing. It's it's a really interesting story. I
don't need to get into it on here, but the
or some really strange coincidences fell apart fell into place
right there at his house.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
It was really really cool.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
That's great me too.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
It was just a treat. It was a treat anyway.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
Well, golly, I'm really looking forward to seeing what you
come out with. This is really that's really cool.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
Yeah, yeah, thanks, Yeah, it'd be great to talk to
you about it when it's.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
Time, Absolutely exactly when it's time. Yes, indeed.
Speaker 3 (48:42):
Well, thank you so much for making time for us today.
I feel like I learned more about Dippicks and thank.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
You for having me. Always a pleasure, and.
Speaker 3 (48:51):
Keep us informed if you do any more of these
kind of talks. I did a poor Joe. I tried
to promote this on social media, but my profile is
so tiny.
Speaker 2 (48:59):
Now, okay, just appreciate any any shout out so it
always helps.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
No worries. Well, thanks forgot to both of you. Have
a good night.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Well everybody.
Speaker 4 (49:09):
Bye bye, Thank you, Peter, Bye bye.
Speaker 3 (49:13):
You've been listening to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters.
I'm Blake Smith and.
Speaker 4 (49:18):
I'm Karen Stolsner.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
You just heard a chat with Peter biebergall about Jewish
mysticism and especially about demons and dibbicks. Check out links
to Peter's books in the show notes, as well as
a link to his upcoming talk with the Last Tuesday Society.
Those are always fascinating listening. You should check out their schedule.
You never know what familiar name I show up there.
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Monster Talk. Our
(49:42):
goal here is to bring you the best in monster
related content with a focus on scientific skepticism and critical thinking.
If you enjoy our show and want to support our mission,
start out by visiting monster Talk dot.
Speaker 5 (49:54):
Org forward slash support. That's monster talk dot org forward
slash Support. There you'll find links to our Patreon page,
as well as a donate button if you'd like to
just make a one time contribution. A great way to
support the show is to buy books from our.
Speaker 3 (50:10):
Amazon wish list. These are books that directly help with
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(50:32):
Positive reviews help keep us visible in iTunes, which is
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theme music is by Pete Stealing Monkeys. By now, there
(50:55):
must be dozens of podcasts out there, but thanks for
keeping this one a part of your listening routine.
Speaker 4 (51:47):
This has been a Monster House presentation.
Monster House Presents.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
It's actually quite unlike anything we've ever seen before. A giant,
very creature party part in Luckness, a twenty four a
mile long bottomless lake in the Highlands of Scotland. It's
a creature known as the Luckness Monster. Monster Talk.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Welcome to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters. I'm
Blake Smith.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
And I'm Karen Stolsner.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Hey, they're muster Talkers. Today we're going to be chatting
with Peter Biebergall, whose work in monsters, culture, religion and
magic has a ton of overlap with our own interest
here on this show. We snagged him because of a
recent talk he gave on Jewish mysticism and the occult.
But as you'll hear in our interview, he's also working
on a new book project that's also going to be
right up our alley. In fact, he's giving a talk
(01:23):
on April fourteenth for the Last Tuesday Society, which sounds
like it's on the same sort of topic, and I'll
put a link to that in the show notes. But
if you love monsters, Peter's work is going to be
right up your alley. This app is a little bit
over stuff, so let's just bite right into it.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
More Monstertal.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Tonight, we welcome back Peter bieber Gall, an author whose
books you really should check out if you enjoy this
show because a lot of his content overlaps, and we've
had on Peter before to discuss the occult in rock
and roll as well as technologi's role in proving the supernatural,
and those were refend his book Season of the Witch
and Strange Frequencies. But many of you would also appreciate
(02:05):
the work he did pulling together the many core texts
that influenced Gary Geygax's Dungeons and Dragons and a volume
that's called Appendix in so if you check their show notes,
we'll have links to all that stuff. Peter also did
commentary on a recent DVD for the twenty fifteen Holyish
film Demon. He did an essay called in the Shadow
(02:25):
of the dipoc and he also did a talk at
Morbid Anatomy, which for if you don't know more of
an anatomy.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
It's been a.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Blog, it's been a museum, it's been a library, and
now it continues to exist online and hosts classes and
lectures as well as other content in the real world,
and it has a very similar vibe to the Order
of the Good Death, which I gather is not actually
a coincidence. I believe the person who organized more of
an anatomy is also a founder of the Order of
the Good Death. So some very interesting people gathered together
(02:55):
doing really interesting things, and you got involved with it, Peter,
and you did a talk called Demons and Dibbicks, Magic
and the Occult in the Jewish World, And we're excited
to have you back, but let's start out with how
did your talk go?
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah, I've always enjoyed speaking with you both, and you've
just always been such a cheerleader of my work, been
really appreciative over the years of that and fans of yours,
so it's mutual. Yeah, to talk went really well. I
felt like there was a good there was a good audience,
and I know there was more registrations than people that
(03:28):
were there, but folks who registered could watch the lecture after,
and I think that's just the way of things now too,
and very generous, gracious crowd. People seem to have a
lot of good ideas of their own. So there was
a fairly lively Q and A at the end, and
(03:49):
Joana Ebenstein who hosts and runs More of an Anatomy.
She's a delight and it was really great too do
this with her. I've done couple things with Morbid Anatomy
over the years. In fact, my first public talk of
Season of the Witch was at More of Anatomy when
(04:10):
it was the actual physical museum in Brooklyn, which was
an incredible space at the time.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
I love the name Morbid Anatomy. That's a cool name. Well,
today we're going to talk about your divic research, but
could we start with how you learned about these entities?
Speaker 2 (04:31):
I learned well. So it's a complicated story for me
because I grew up very secular jew We had some
minor holiday observances, but I was also later just because
(04:51):
it made practical sense for my parents at the time
and where we lived. They they wanted me to be
bar mitzvad. My brother had been barmitzvah, but they weren't
part of a synagogue, so they I was able to
get lessons in Hebrew and Torah through the Rabbat house
(05:12):
which was in Miami, Florida, which where we were near
we were living at the time, and so my bar
mitzra was done through the Orthodox with some called ultra
Orthodox Jewish community, which for them they were what's part
of the Labovita set of Abbaud Judaism. So I had
(05:35):
this whole other experience with very rigorous, deeply observant Judaism
next to my very secular Jewish life as a you know,
in my family. And I have to say what's interesting
is on the side of my family, I learned a
(05:58):
lot of superstitions. My mother was incre incredibly superstitious, and
it was very important that we adhered to those growing up.
You know, if you throw if you spill salt, you
have to throw it over your shoulder, you know, all
the things. But with the with the ultra Orthodox, there
(06:21):
was almost none of that. So in terms of my
own early relationship as somebody who's Jewish to these things,
there was very little except for the sort of superstitions
which a sum which came sort of out of Eastern
European jewelry, and then this ultra Orthodoxy, which is where
(06:42):
in fact a lot of the notions about magic and
the cult actually live within weren't presented to me either.
So but I was always a kid. I probably talked
about this on your show before that was interested in
magic and the supernatural and monsters and science fiction and fantasy,
(07:04):
and so it was. I was always sort of coming
across some of these things, like I knew what the
golam was. And I have to say, there's sort of
a jump in time. But the first, the first thing
that happened to me when I started to understand that
there was a relationship between magic and Judaism was when
(07:26):
I was probably fourteen years old. I were fifteen years old.
Now I was back in Libya, Massa Jusetts went to Salem,
went to this to Lori Cabot's bookstore. In fact, I'm
sure people are familiar with Salem, which life know of
Lori Cabot and she I went to her bookstore and
(07:48):
I found this book called This Key of Solomon the King,
Oh yeah, which is, you know, one of the essential
Western magical grimoires, translated by MacGregor Mathers now during the
Hermetic word of the Golden Dawn period. And I was
(08:08):
really interested, you know, Intullians and dragons, and so I
had this idea that this was a real book of
a spell book, a magician's spell book that was ancient,
felt really compelling. So I saved my money and I
went back, I bought this book, and one of the
things that struck me, you know, a year or so
(08:29):
after my bar Mitzvah, was that so much of the
text was in Hebrew, and that a lot of the
references were to a which we would maybe say an
Old Testament. I wouldn't necessarily use that term, but you know,
a Hebrew or Jewish relationship to God as opposed to say,
(08:54):
a Christian one. Nice and not a pagan one either,
like decide you're right, very important, you know, not and
not in that sense in that broad sense that we
use the word pagan. But so that that always stuck
with me, and then later just you know, in school,
I studied, you know, I studied religion, and so these
(09:16):
were always part of my always part of the landscape
of my imagination, of my research and my scholarship and
all the things that I've done over the years. But
I never really took a deep dive into it until
probably I started doing some work for a couple of
(09:42):
online Jewish magazines at the time. You know, it's funny
to talk about the Internet and to talk about internet writing,
and that that golden age of Internet scenes you know,
and so there was a there was a great one
called Zeke, and there was Next Book, which I think
(10:03):
got subsumed into Tablet Magazine. Anyways, I was doing a
couple of things for you know, so there was always
something that I wanted to write about. So I was
always educating myself on this material, and so that whenever
there was an opportunity to do something where I could
really do a deep dive, I would always jump at it.
And so most recently was when Seven Films who put
(10:28):
out the re release of The Demon as part of
their box set of folk horror Films. This but they're
sort of volume two and make sure I get the
name of that of that right.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Yeah, that looked really red at my alley and I
noticed they outside Psychomania, which.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Is Psychomania Boy, that death film. When I was a kid.
That was really incredible to see when you're like eleven
years old.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
It's a ride and that's not a motorcycle point the
movies A rise.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Really Yeah, it's so good. Anyway, we'll we'll have to
talk about that.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Another time, but yes, absolutely it is a really good film.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
So in any case, that was so when they had
asked if I wanted to be a part of this
and to do something related to this film The Demon,
which is an incredible Polish film. Oh all the Haunts,
so just again get this right. So this is the
(11:39):
second volume of All the Haunts be Hours, which is
a companion of folk horror films, and the film The
Demon is a Polish film about a Jewish man marrying
into a non Jewish but Polish family which already has
(12:01):
some potential tensions there in Poland, and he becomes baby
possessed by a Dibock. It's a remarkable film. I highly
recommend it, and if you're going to spend the money
on it, I would just get the buck set and
(12:23):
get all the great other films. But also that there's
all this included extra stuff that comes with it. And
one of those things that which is what Searon asked
me to do, was to do a one of those
commentary extras for the DVD of that film.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
To talk about familiar with those yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Yeah, exactly, to talk about the history of the dibock
as as a concept. And so to do that, you know,
I had to sort of do a sort of my
own mini refresher course for myself about some of that material,
and it was it started to remind me of some
(13:05):
things that I had briefly come across over the years.
But when I started to dig a little deeper, just
really opened up a rich universe of material that I
knew in some ways, like I said, but had never
quite tried to put together in a fully formed study
(13:29):
of it, at least, you know, at a very high level.
I mean this is not a deep textual you know,
look at these things, but just in terms of a
general overview, to start bringing all these disparate things together
as Judaism relates to the occult and the supernatural.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Well, it's such a fun process to go from light
familiarity to starting to be able to make connections and
sort of synthesize what it all means exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
That's really the best part of research, I think.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Now, we've discussed the dipic on this show before, but
as part of our series we've done called the base
on a true story and we dug into the movie
The Possession and the Alleged Case. And yes that is
a pun intended this fall, but can you introduce dipics
to our listeners. Let's assume that they have never seen
(14:23):
a depic movie, and they don't know what a dipic is.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Bring it, what we got here? What are we dealing with?
Speaker 2 (14:30):
So I think you do, and this is one of
the things I learned is you do have to sort
of go back a little bit to know to be
able to understand that the idea of that dipic doesn't
exist in a vacuum, that it exists within a framework
of a worldview in some corners of Judaism, mostly Eastern European,
(14:55):
that is haunted by all manner of spirits and demons
and ghosts and golams and magic spells and seers and
witches and dibics. Right, So it's it's not just Judaism
doesn't have any supernatural law, except now we have the dipick.
(15:18):
And that's the one thing Judaism has. It's a it's
one of us. It's one member of a whole order
of ideas and entities that basically has to do ultimately
with the idea that these folk traditions, that the live tradition.
(15:47):
And this is true of all religion, but we're talking
about in the context of Judaism, that the lived experience
of religious people can often be very different or sometimes
in in in theological opposition to or practical opposition to
(16:08):
the normative texts, or say the hierarchies or the the
established establishment as it were. Right, So, the Bible says,
you are not supposed to talk spirits, you're not supposed
to talk to witches, not supposed to be a necromancer.
(16:29):
Very clear prohibitions against that kind of activity. I can
just give you, you know, sort of one of the
high level ones, which is from Leviticus, which says, and
if any person turns to ghosts and familiar spirits and
(16:50):
goes astray after them, I will set my face against
that person and cut him off from among his people.
But the Bible itself has stories of people doing just that,
and in fact, one of my favorite, one of the
most well known, is in the Book of Samuel. Samuels
(17:12):
died and Saul wants to speak to his spirit, so
he goes to find the Witch of Endor to ask
her to conjure his spirit. And there's this really great
moment in that story where when he finds the Witch
of Endor and asks her this, even she says, well, buddy,
we're not supposed to do this. You're trying to get
me in trouble like I. Even she knew the prohibition.
(17:37):
And so even there we get this beautiful, almost candid
look at, here's the law and here's the live the
way people lived right within this obviously long time apart
in terms of when the text were written, probably, but
just in you know, just in terms of an understanding
(17:59):
of those two things things. So that's that. Then we
already know that for most religions there is usually some
related form of magical or what we might call spiritualist practice,
(18:21):
right whether it involves charms to protect yourself against demonic forces,
or some kind of divination to foretell the future, or
the attempt to communicate with spirits to gain some information
(18:42):
of some kind. And so when we look at the Talmud,
which is the commentary on the oral tradition of Judaism
called the mid Rush, we see all kinds of debates
amongst the rabbis about ghosts and demons, and there's very
little about whether or not they're real or not. The
(19:03):
question is never, is never our demons real? The question
is how should we deal with the fact that demons
are real? So there's a thing about how it says
the prohibition isn't that you shouldn't try to communicate with
a demon. The prohibition is it's a warning that you
(19:26):
shouldn't communicate with a demon because the information that they
give you is probably going to be a lie. So
so it's almost like they kind of fall back a
little bit, recognizing the way in which people lived that
there was no way they were going to be able
to control that. So they said, Okay, well, we know
people are going to do this, so let's at least
(19:47):
make sure they do it safely, right in some way.
So I just I say all that just to say that,
you know, to talk about the diboc is to also
just talk about a whole understanding and judaism of the
role in some corners, the role of spirits, the role
(20:08):
of demons, the role of those who may be able
to communicate with them is a really important thing to understand.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
Well, Peter, you've talked a bit about the Old Testament
and the taln mode. So how far back do these
dibics go.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Well, I don't know about this. So there's always the
idea of ghosts and spirits. The Talma talks about ghosts.
There's some really funny stories about the spirit tells another
somebody who's alive to tell their daughter to tell this
(20:55):
other person to get her combs because she knows that
person is going to die, and the spirit wants her
combs that she had when she was alive to make
sure she brings them to the afterlife with her. So
there's all these little funny stories about what's really the
question is what do the dead know? That's sort of
the question that the rabbis ask. So this idea of
(21:17):
ghosts and spirits has already built in the idea of
the dipic is very interesting because the dipic is a
story of possession more than just a free floating spirits
in its own right, if that makes sense. And so
(21:40):
one of the things is that there is a lot
of these rise out of out of folk tales, right,
And it's possible that what you often get in these
folk traditions is people trying to make sense, often of
(22:02):
other kinds of how do I say, inscrutable things that
might be happening, right, A particular kind of I mean,
it's with any times that people have blamed spirit possession
on maybe somebody who was epileptic or right had other
kinds of illness, it couldn't be explained, especially when children
(22:25):
are ill trying to make sense of that. So one
of the things also has to do though, that there
is some part of Jewish lore that has to do
with reincarnation, this idea of Gilgoul that the souls will return.
(22:46):
And one of the ideas is that some souls are
they're like the off the almost righteous, like they almost
became a saint, but there were a few things that
they needed to do, like one last good deed they
needed to do to complete their cycle of life maybe
(23:09):
or you know, so sometimes in what was called an
ibor would possess somebody so that they could then go
and do a good deed even though they had already died,
which would then be part of their you know, would
then be written into the book of life for them. Right,
(23:31):
But some are some of these spirits are restless or angry,
and so these dipik they the so ib or could
be seen as a blessing. If you're possessed by an
ebor and you go and in that body, in your body,
the ibor does a good deed, then that's a great
thing that's happened, almost like you did a mitzvah. It's
(23:54):
like you did a good deed to let the spirit
use your body so that they could, you know, do
the right thing. But the dibik is something that tends
to be the idea of is restless or angry. And
in fact, the word dybbuk comes from the Hebrew term
(24:14):
which means to cling to something. So even in the
name itself is this idea of something, of something that's
not great, that's latched on, maybe in a way that
you didn't that you didn't want. And so one of
(24:37):
the earliest stories is a seventeenth century story also called
the Possession, and a young man is possessed by a
So a man is lost at c a sailor was
lost at sea. His body was never found, so his
(24:58):
wife cannot remarry. So the spirit of the man lost
at sea possesses another young man to try to convince
the rabbis that he is indeed dead, even though they
don't have a body, so that his wife can legally remarry.
(25:19):
Because in the Jewish law, if there's if you can't
prove the person's dead, then by all all accounts, you're
still married, and so you can't get married again, right,
And so a lot of typic stories tend to revolve
around this idea of marriage, and so this is one
(25:42):
of the ways in which you know, these are related
to and like a lot of folk tales, are related
to moments of transition right in somebody's life. So the
most common one that we see is that of a
(26:03):
male a male spirit in the body of a in
the body of a woman, and it's often that she's
about to be married, or maybe she is a widow.
And there is whole texts that can be found. Some
(26:25):
of these are being archived online, very early texts that
actually give you the account of how the rabbis went
about trying to exercise the spirit of the diboc from
the person.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Could could this it all be? This sounds a little metaphorical,
but I mean in the sense that it is in
these accounts. Are is it pretty clear that the person
previously had wanted the marriage and then suddenly changed or
is this more of an arranged situation and that the
person is resisting the marriage and it has to be
(27:03):
attributed to a demon like I.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Just I don't know. I mean, I think a lot,
you know, a lot of it is you know, some
would argue that it's a challenge to a woman's potentially
bursioning sexual life, or or maybe the implication is that
(27:26):
they weren't, you know, they had already been with somebody before,
and so it's a kind of a punishment of that.
Like it's like a like only a woman who had,
you know, you know, slept with somebody before their marriage
would be susceptible to that or something. You know. So
there's I don't think it's so it's hard to know
(27:50):
what for what purpose the story would be told. In
that very early story that I told you about, one
of the one of my favorite parts of that tale
is that the it becomes a story about the hubris
of the rabbis, not about the person who is possessed
(28:13):
at all. And there's this great that are trying to
exercise him, and there's this great moment where the debick
is trying to you know, the rabbits are asking how
do we know you're really what you say you are?
And he starts revealing secrets about them.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Oh nice, Yeah, that's always good stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Yeah. And one of the things he reveals about one
of the rabbis is and this is this I think
actually speaks to a number of really interesting things that
we can talk about. But one of the things that
he says is to the rabbi, to one of the rabbis,
(29:00):
is there, you know, hey, that one over there he
lay with a man, and that's as bad bad is marrying,
as lame with a married one. But what's interesting about
that for me is that he's not that sin of
a man laying with a man isn't somehow then relegate
(29:23):
as being worse than anything else. It's actually equated with
any other sin, right, in a sense, like you laid
with a woman that wasn't your wife, you laid with
a man, You did this, you did that, And so
there's this almost equitable understanding of sin, and which is
(29:47):
very different of the way we often talk about those
things today. Right, we've decided that some are greater than
others based on some criteria that I don't know personally,
but yeah, right, But in this case we see that
there is at least within you know, a tradition.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
First among equals, right, exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
So it wasn't like then they all turned to him
and say, you lay with her, man, get out of here.
We don't even want your part of this conversation any
you know, it's all off. It's just he was just
pointing out that they are all sinners, right, but trying
to somehow then claim that they knew more than he
(30:33):
did as a trying to convince them that he was
the spirit of this dead husband.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
Right earlier, Peter, you were talking about amulets, Yes, and
so I'm wondering what are the kinds of things that
people used to repel or protect themselves against divics?
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Yep, so I most ambulets, believe it or not, are
not usually forgibbicks. I mean, there might be some, but
I think for the most part they were to ward
off they were either good luck charms or they were
to ward off evil spirits, mostly Lilith. I would say
(31:15):
the vast majority, it seems of at least the ambulance
I've seen and studied, I have to do with Lilith
and protecting the protection of a child or pregnant woman.
Our Fraser creative exactly. Well, Seattle, we have a celebrity
(31:37):
of sorts on the line. This is my ex wife, Lilith.
What do you mean by celebrity? Oh, they know you.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
I have a little this is a little Lucy Goosey question,
But thinking about you mentioned the Key of Solomon and
thinking about the legends of Solomon using demons to control
them with a reing and get things accomplished, Like that's
a demons as workers, yes, versus demons as possessors, versus
(32:10):
demons as oppressors. These are the Are these different entities
in these stories or are they all.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Trying to say it's how I think they're all. I mean.
One of the interesting things is in the story of Solomon,
one of the stories of one of the one of
the tales of Solomon, when he so Solomon's trying to
build his temple, he finds out that there's this worm
called a schmir that can shemir, that can that can
cut the blocks really perfectly. It's a giant worm. And
(32:41):
as he understands it, as Modius, king of the demons,
knows where this worm is, but he has to first
find Asmodius, so he conjures up these other demons to
torment them as magicians are wanted, you know, often do
when they're binding demons to get them to respond curses
(33:08):
and bindings, asking where Asmodius is, and the the demons say, well,
he can either be he's only in one of two places.
He's either in Heaven in the study halls, or he's
on Earth in the study halls. So there's no, he's
not a demon of Hell. These are still divine entities
(33:35):
part of God's great universe, right, nothing separated from there.
So there isn't this, there's no idea, there's no notion
in Judaism when talking about these demons as fallen angels
or fallen beings in that sense. I mean, I do know,
you know, we have this idean Enoch, which is you know,
(33:59):
a which is the Gnostic text, which make a larger,
deeper mythology about the one mention of the nepheline that
we find in Genesis.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Right, yeah, No, no troublesome Internet people ever came from
reading the Book of Enich.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Never exactly this one little thing in Genesis that says,
you know, the sons of God married the daughters of men. Yeah,
and then they're giants. But again, there's nothing later in
rabbinical text or anything that I know of that describes
these things as fallen angels that are now demons or devils,
(34:42):
and so so the idea that as Modius the King
of the demons is still spending his time studying Torah
in heaven, you know, or studying in you know, on earth.
Is a perfectly Jewish idea of the nature the universe. Right,
the angels and the demons and anything that has anything
(35:04):
to do with God. All they really want to do
is just study Torah, right, That's the thing, so he
had So that's the So embedded in these folk tales,
in these legends are all these other ways of understanding
a broader picture of a kind of Jewish conception of
(35:24):
the universe and of how these entities interact with each other.
I mean, this goes back to, you know, complicated, the
whole complicated issue of who the Satan is in job right,
not anything connected to Lucifer or a fallen creature of
any kind, but rather a figure that exists within the
(35:47):
heavenly court that can chat with God and make plans
and scheme and try to bother this poor guy who
is trying to mind his own business, right job. So
we have these entities and the way in which they exist.
(36:08):
You know. Again, this idea that that we learned from
the rabbis that it's not that you shouldn't talk to demons.
It's just that they're probably going to lie to you.
So that's why you should be wary. This idea, and
even the idea of the Dibok possession I don't think
(36:30):
necessarily is about an evil entity in the way that
we think about demonic possession and sort of a more
Christian concept. I think it's a you know, a troubled spirit.
It's more like the way maybe the idea of the poltergeist, right,
(36:50):
which is something that just hasn't figured out how to
move on. But the term possession tends to immediately, you know,
trigger the idea of like a demon in that evil
exorcist sense.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
Right, Yeah, which, as we know from that film, you know,
possessions nine tenths of the lore.
Speaker 4 (37:17):
Just old day.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
But it's true. It's true.
Speaker 4 (37:27):
I'd have to say that. I think when a lot
of people think about the depic nowadays, they think about
the depict box. And Blake had mentioned the position earlier.
Uh so, what what is the debic box? Is that
a real belief that anyway?
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Why the guy decided who came up with that, that
it would be a debt box, you know? But so
somebody posted on eBay that he had this box that
he was told was contained a dipic. I imagine the
two of you might even know more about it than
I do.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
We we know it's been thoroughly debunked at this point,
but the.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Thing is that it doesn't really align itself with any
Jewish lore about gibbecks.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
There we go.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
Yeah, it's so interesting, but then that's where people know
it from.
Speaker 4 (38:19):
I mean, that's the all I know.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
What I was curious about.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
I don't know if you've done any looking into this,
and this would be a lot of work to figure out,
but I'm wondering if there are now more gentile reports
of dibbicks. Since these films were so influential, it does,
you know, being raised in Judaism sort of does it
inoculate you from the pop culture version.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
I don't know, you know.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Because again because if I was raising it, but I
didn't know anything about them as a kid, it wasn't
part of our lore. I mean, and I don't think
for most you know, most Jews an immigrated from Eastern Europe,
depending well depending on when, if those if those things
were brought with them. Maybe in the more orthodox communities
(39:08):
where these folk tales and superstitions were more embedded in
the in just sort of the communities, right. But my
family when they, you know, came over from Poland and
Russia at the turn of the century, they had no interest,
you know, except, like I said, from my mother's own
(39:29):
latent superstitions that they wanted to be wholly modern Jews.
And if they even knew what a dippick was, they
would say, that's ridiculous. Right. But you know, but if
you ask my mother, there's you know, if you ask
my mother, you know, she would say, well you should
(39:50):
they should still be careful, right exactly.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
Yeah, yeah, your comments about the Greater you were talking
about the Greater Key of Solomon, right, there's the lesser key,
the Greater Creator.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Yes, yeah, this was the one the book that I
had with the Key of Solomon the King would Yes,
that's I guess that's considered the Creator King. The lesser
than includes the goesha.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Right, yes, exactly, yeah, yeah, yes, we talked about it.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
We did a little bit in the Western Esso Terroticism
and Magic series that we've been slowly creeping through.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
I just it struck me, like you know, of course,
I grew up evangelical and it was always implied that
if you know, just even looking at a spell book
was you know, the path to hell. And so when
I finally got around to actually cracking some open and
discovered how deeply immersed they are in either Judaic or
(40:54):
Christian framing, like, it really surprised me.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
Like it's not I always expect to be.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
Now, take your baby, make sure it's on baptized, get
the fat, and here's how you make the flying part.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
It's nothing like that at all.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
It's it's about through the power of God or through
the power of Christ, you'll be able to command these
demons to accomplish these feats. And it's like, how is it,
one wonders, I mean, you know that that so many
people are afraid of these things and never even bother
to see if there's anything there to be afraid of exactly.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
I mean, that's and I think that that's what happens
with again, the lived experience is often that you know,
we also have to understand that in the context of
history of Judaism, and not not to you know, single
it out necessarily, but yes, maybe to single out a
little bit, which is that when we talk about amulets
(41:50):
and what people are trying to do with an amulet. Well,
there are all these very real things that are at
the gates coming to get you, right, whether it's a
pogram or whatever, whatever kind of potential anti Semitic violence
could be coming your way. And as a very religious person,
(42:14):
how those things become absorbed into a broader understanding of
the universe and the forces a raid against you. It
makes sense that you would think a magical ambulant might
protect you from all evil things that want to harm you, right,
(42:40):
And so a lot of these things are born out
of a kind of you know, almost a necessity of
feeling like you have to protect yourself and your family.
And there's a lot of things, both real and supernatural,
that our potential dangers.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
That reminds me of Binny from The Mummy, the character
who's got a little religious amulet from everything, and when
things start to go sour, starts just quoting and you know,
sighting and praying in every language and.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Protecting. It's a ship of butches over his fluff.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
You know, job.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
Exactly exactly, yes. But but this idea of the religious
element is really important too, because one of the important
Jewish magical Texas called the Sepherharazine, and it's a it's
a it's an instruction manual basically about ascending the levels
of the seven levels of heaven, the seven stages of heaven,
(44:00):
and each one along the way you encounter a group
of you encounter the angels that govern that layer, and
you are taught certain magical procedures and spells, and when
you've mastered those, you move on to the next, into
the next, into the next, And there are names of
(44:23):
all the angels written out, and it's very complicated, and
it's a really beautiful text, just the poetry of the
descriptions of the heavens and the various angelic beings. But
when you get to the seventh level, you would think, Okay,
this is where the most powerful magic is going to be, right,
(44:44):
this is where I'll be able to you know, command
armies and you know, have all my greatest desires fulfilled.
But in fact you go through all this work, all
this all this sort of magical ritual process and and
work to get to the seventh heaven, and the entirety
(45:05):
of that part of the text is just a devotional
prayer to God. So the almost the idea is once
you get there. You don't even need magic anymore. It's
irrelevant to what the true purpose is, which is this
you uniting with the one, right, So there's almost a
(45:27):
lesson there, like, haha, we tricked you, We made you
think this was the important thing, but yeah, we were
just you know, we knew this would bait you to
get you interested in what we're really here to teach you,
which is how to work, how to properly be devoted
to God.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
I'm sure it's no coincidence so much that sounds like
Star Trek's idea of ascension. I think you know the
characters who turn into light beings that you know, become.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
These Yeah, absolutely exactly.
Speaker 3 (46:01):
Yeah, they've just processed a wigh, the need for the
flesh and any of that stuff, and just yeah, so
not to confuse with Q and you know, we don't.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
Giant Star Trek sidetracks. Sorry about that, but.
Speaker 4 (46:15):
Well, Peter, we should start to wrap things up. And
you're always working on something interesting, so we wanted to
ask you what you're working on now, what's coming next?
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Yeah, well, I'm working out some I don't really think
would be of interest to you, to either of you,
but I'm actually writing a book right now to be
published by the University California Press on cultural history of
monsters and monster movies from the sixties and the seventies. No, yeah, yeah,
(46:47):
so I'm looking so, you know, the sort of the
monster Kid, the Creature feature Kids.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
So famous monsters of film Land and Aurora monster models.
Oh my gosh, yes, sort of positioning that moment within
the within this idea of you know, the late sixties
and seventies is an age of anxiety and and how
monsters sort of provided a kind of enchanted mythos for
(47:17):
young people, especially who are trying to navigate the what
seemingly by osmosis anxieties they were picking up from their
parents and the and the and the greater world and
the wider world.
Speaker 1 (47:30):
Well that sounds awesome. Yeah, what you're saying.
Speaker 4 (47:34):
Is we're going to have to bring you back on again.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
You know, I got to meet for sacrament a few times.
I got to go to really toured the ac mansion,
the whole thing. Oh my gosh, yeah, it's just what
he was.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
He kind of a grumpy guy or what.
Speaker 3 (47:52):
Oh my gosh, no, No, it was super friendly. I mean,
the only awkward moment was he lets you tour the
house for free, and at the end he kind of
does the you know, puts his hat out moment, and
I was really poor, so I felt a little bad
that I didn't have much to put in the hat.
But I mean, my god, you know, it was his
(48:14):
house was amazing. It's it's a really interesting story. I
don't need to get into it on here, but the
or some really strange coincidences fell apart fell into place
right there at his house.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
It was really really cool.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
That's great me too.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
It was just a treat. It was a treat anyway.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
Well, golly, I'm really looking forward to seeing what you
come out with. This is really that's really cool.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
Yeah, yeah, thanks, Yeah, it'd be great to talk to
you about it when it's.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
Time, Absolutely exactly when it's time. Yes, indeed.
Speaker 3 (48:42):
Well, thank you so much for making time for us today.
I feel like I learned more about Dippicks and thank.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
You for having me. Always a pleasure, and.
Speaker 3 (48:51):
Keep us informed if you do any more of these
kind of talks. I did a poor Joe. I tried
to promote this on social media, but my profile is
so tiny.
Speaker 2 (48:59):
Now, okay, just appreciate any any shout out so it
always helps.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
No worries. Well, thanks forgot to both of you. Have
a good night.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Well everybody.
Speaker 4 (49:09):
Bye bye, Thank you, Peter, Bye bye.
Speaker 3 (49:13):
You've been listening to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters.
I'm Blake Smith and.
Speaker 4 (49:18):
I'm Karen Stolsner.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
You just heard a chat with Peter biebergall about Jewish
mysticism and especially about demons and dibbicks. Check out links
to Peter's books in the show notes, as well as
a link to his upcoming talk with the Last Tuesday Society.
Those are always fascinating listening. You should check out their schedule.
You never know what familiar name I show up there.
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Monster Talk. Our
(49:42):
goal here is to bring you the best in monster
related content with a focus on scientific skepticism and critical thinking.
If you enjoy our show and want to support our mission,
start out by visiting monster Talk dot.
Speaker 5 (49:54):
Org forward slash support. That's monster talk dot org forward
slash Support. There you'll find links to our Patreon page,
as well as a donate button if you'd like to
just make a one time contribution. A great way to
support the show is to buy books from our.
Speaker 3 (50:10):
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(50:32):
Positive reviews help keep us visible in iTunes, which is
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(50:55):
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Speaker 4 (51:47):
This has been a Monster House presentation.
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