Who knew? Everything you ever wanted to know about Jewish exorcisms!

(Read post below this one, first. Please and thank you.)

I guess Jews have exorcisms too. (Whew! I mean, just in case... G-d forbid, pphth, ppthth...)

Here is some of the stuff I found:

One of the best known Judaic ritual, cited in Judaism rabbinical literature dating from the first century AD, concerns the dybbuk, an evil or doomed spirit which possesses a victim and causes mental illness and a personality change. The dybbuk is expelled through the victim's small toe, and then is either redeemed or sent to hell.
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From: http://www.ghostvillage.com/legends/2003/legends32_11292003.shtml:

Rabbi Gershon Winkler has been studying Jewish folklore, spirituality, and its shamanic roots for more than 25 years. He has written books covering the Jewish perspective on ghosts, apparitions, magic, and reincarnation, including a book titled Dybbuk. Rabbi Winkler said, "[Jews] don't believe in demonic possession. We believe that, on very rare occasions, there can be a possession of a living person by the soul of one who has left the body, but not the world, and they're seeking a body to possess to finish whatever they need to finish."

A true possession does have specific signs. Rabbi Winkler explained, "You can tell it is real if the person is capable of speaking things that they would not otherwise be capable of knowing. Because the soul that's in them is not integrated with them enough to be subject to time, space, and matter, they would be able to tell you things they would ordinarily not know -- like what you dreamed last night, what's happening across the street, maybe they can even speak a separate language that they've never known before."

If this kind of bad possession takes hold, the solution is exorcism. The Jewish exorcism ritual is performed by a rabbi who has mastered practical Kabbalah (Important Blogger's note: THIS REFERS TO THE REAL STUDY OF JUDAIC MYSTICISM, NOT THE CRAPFEST MONEY-GRUBBING CULT THAT MORONS LIKE MADONNA/BRITNEY ET AL LIKE TO PROCLAIM AS THEIR "RELIGION!!!"). The ceremony involves a quorum of 10 people who gather in a circle around the possessed person. The group recites Psalm 91 three times, and the rabbi blows the shofar -- a ram's horn.

Rabbi Winkler has performed four exorcisms in his life so far. He said, "We blow the ram's horn in a certain way, with certain notes, in effect to shatter the body, so to speak. So that the soul who is possessing will be shaken loose. After it has been shaken loose, we can begin to communicate with it and ask it what it is here for. We can pray for it and do a ceremony for it to enable it to feel safe and finished so that it can leave the person's body."

The point of the exorcism is to heal the person being possessed and the spirit doing the possessing. This is a stark contrast to the Catholic exorcism that is intended to drive away the offending spirit or demon. Winkler said, "We don't drive anything out of anybody. What we want to do is to heal the soul that's possessing and heal the person. It's all about healing -- we do the ceremony on behalf of both people."

Who knew?