Case file · High strangeness
The spirit in the widow of Safed
Accounts from Safed describe a spirit, the soul of a sinner, that possessed a widow around 1571 and was questioned and expelled by kabbalists of Isaac Luria's circle.
1571 CE · 32.97, 35.50 · status: account
The account
Hayyim Vital and others recorded several such cases in Safed and Damascus in the late 16th and early 17th centuries; the possessing soul spoke through the victim, named its sins and begged for repair. Historian J. H. Chajes calls these the first documented dybbuk exorcisms; the word 'dybbuk' itself came later.
The sceptical view
Modern readers see social pressures on women and illness in the accounts, which were written by the exorcists' circle.