New July Class - Exorcists, Embodied Magic, and the Evil Eye

Rooster in the Cradle (Part Two): A Brief History of the Evil Eye and Yiddish Anti-Demonic Technologies

You are warmly invited to join us for Rooster in the Cradle (Part Two) on Tuesday evenings, July 14, 21 and 28 at 7pm EST. ($100)  To register, send an email to cjcrokhl@gmail.com

 

Everyone is invited to this class, even if you haven’t taken Part 1.

If you’ve ever put a red ribbon around a crib, or uttered a kinehore (keyn ayin-hore, Yiddish for “no evil eye”), you have drawn on a rich tradition of embodied, apotropaic (anti-demonic) magic going back thousands of years.

 

In many Eastern European towns, you could find Jewish men and women who specialized in exorcising the Evil Eye: the (op)shprekher(ke)s. Where a specialist wasn’t available, ordinary mothers and fathers had their own techniques for lifting bewitchments. When I say this was an embodied magic, I mean it quite literally. Even the simple act of “poo poo poo-ing” drew on the power of human saliva to neutralize and drive away the evil forces which plagued Yiddish-speaking Jews. 

 

The danger of the Evil Eye is hardly a thing of the past. More than any other time in history, we are now vulnerable to an infinite number of eyes, seeing us from every angle. Technology has become a force multiplier for the malevolent human gaze, as well as the greed and envy that travel with it. If you've ever posted your new car/vacation/graduation pics for all to see, you might want to learn more about the ancient dangers awaiting us online!

 

Topics in Part 2 include:

• Elijah the Prophet's role in healing and anti-demonic incantations
• More tales of (op)shprekher(ke)s - the shtetl exorcists
• The surprising story of how the Yiddish Evil Eye made its mark on American pop culture