booknetsaWebster-secretSocietiesAndSubversiveMovements

from this source. Indeed Eliphas Lévi, who certainly cannot be accused of " Anti-Semitism," declares that "
the Jews, the most faithful trustees of the secrets of the Cabala, were almost always the great masters of magic
in the Middle Ages,"(10) and suggests that Gilles de Rais took his monstrous recipes for using the blood
of murdered children " from some of those old Hebrew grimoires (books on magic)) which, if they had been
known, would have sufficed to hold up the Jews to the execration of the whole earth."(11) Voltaire, in his
Henriade, likewise attributes the magical blood-rites practised in the sixteenth century to Jewish inspiration:
Dans l'ombre de la nuit, sous une vote obscure, Le silence conduit leur assemblée impure. A la pâle lueur
d'un magique flambeau S'élève un vil autel dressé sur un tombeau. C'est la que des deux rois on plaça les images,
Objets de leur terreur, objets de leurs outrages. Leur sacrilèges mains ont mêlé sur l'autel A des noms
infernaux le non de l'Éternel. Sur ces murs ténébreux des lances sont rangées, Dans des vases de sang leurs
pointes sont plongées; Appareil menaçant de leur mystère affreux. Le prêtre de ce temple est un de ces
Hébreux Qui, proscrits sur la terre et citoyens du monde, Portent de mers en mers leur misère profonde, Et,
d'un antique ramas de superstitions, Ont rempli dès longtemps toutes les nations, etc.
Voltaire adds in a footnote: " It was ordinarily Jews that were made use of for magical operations. This
ancient superstition comes from the secrets of the Cabala, of which the Jews called themselves the sole depositaries.
Catherine de Medicis, the Maréchal d'Ancre, and many others employed Jews for these spells."
This charge of black magic recurs all through the history of Europe from the earliest times. The Jews
are accused of poisoning wells, of practising ritual murder, of using stolen church property for purposes of
desecration, etc. No doubt there enters into all this a great amount of exaggeration, inspired by popular prejudice
and medival superstition. Yet, whilst condemning the persecution to which the Jews were subjected
on this account, it must be admitted that they laid themselves open to suspicion by their real addiction to magical
arts. If ignorant superstition is found on the side of the persecutors, still more amazing superstition is
found on the side of the persecuted. Demonology in Europe was in fact essentially a Jewish science, for although
a belief in the spirits existed from the earliest times and has always continued to exist amongst primitive
races, and also amongst the ignorant classes in civilized countries, it was mainly through the Jews that
these dark superstitions were imported to the West, where they persisted not merely amongst the lower
strata of the Jewish population, but formed an essential part of Jewish tradition. Thus the Talmud says:
If the eye could perceive the demons that people the universe, existence would be impossible. The
demons are more numerous than we are: they surround us on all sides like trenches dug round vineyards.
Every one of us has a thousand on his left hand and ten thousand on his right. The discomfort endured by
those who attend rabbinical conferences... comes from the demons mingling with men in these circumstances.
Besides, the fatigue one feels in one's knees in walking comes from the demons that one knocks up
against at every step. If the clothing of the Rabbis wears out so quickly, it is again because the demons rub
up against them. Whoever wants to convince himself of their presence has only to surround his bed with
sifted cinders and the next morning he will see the imprints of cocks' feet.(12)
The same treatise goes on to give directions for seeing demon by burning portions of a black cat and placing
the ashes in one's eye: " then at once one perceives the demons." The Talmud also explains that devils
particularly inhabit the water spouts on houses and are fond of drinking out of water-jugs, therefore it is advisable
to pour a little water out of a jug before drinking, so as to get rid of the unclean part.(13)
These ideas received a fresh impetus from the publication of the Zohar, which, a Jewish writer tells us, "
from the fourteenth century held almost unbroken sway over the minds of the majority of the Jews. In it the
Talmudic legends concerning the existence and activity of the shedhim (demons) are repeated and amplified,
and a hierarchy of demons was established corresponding to the heavenly hierarchy.... Manasseh [ben
Israel]'s Nishmat Hayim is full of information concerning belief in demons.... Even the scholarly and
learned Rabbis of the seventeenth century clung to the belief."(14)
Here, then, it is not a case of ignorant peasants evolving fantastic visions from their own scared imaginations,
but of the Rabbis, the acknowledged leaders of a race claiming civilized traditions and a high order of
intelligence, deliberately inculcating in their disciples the perpetual fear of demoniacal influences. How
much of this fear communicated itself to the Gentile population? It is at any rate a curious coincidence to
notice the resemblances between so-called popular superstitions and the writings of the Rabbis. For example,
the vile confessions made both by Scotch and French peasant women accused of witchcraft concerning
the nocturnal visits paid them by male devils(15) find an exact counterpart in passages of the Cabala,
where it is said that " the demons are both male and female, and they also endeavour to consort with human
beings-a conception from which arises the belief in incubi and succubi."(16) Thus, on Jewish authority, we
learn the Judaic origin of this strange delusion.
Nesta H. Webster — Secret Societies and Subversive Movements — Part I
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