Dybbuks

Chthonia

In the first part of the 2000s, there were paranormal TV shows and movies made about the Dybbuk (or Dibbuk), an evil spirit from Judaic folklore that can possess a person. The idea of the "Dybbuk Box" that cursed its owners gained urban folktale status. However, these evil spirits are not demons, they are the restless male dead, and were not really a concept until the rise of medieval Kabbalistic Judaism, and in particular from sixteenth century stories from the city of Safed. We look at what dybbuks are, the afterlife theology surrounding them, and different scholarly ideas about dybbuk possession, especially in women. Are these evil spirits preying on the sinful, another misunderstanding of mental illness, or in the case of women, an authentic voice that has been repressed and attributed to a negative male force?