SCHOLASTIC MAGIC: RITUAL AND REVELATION IN EARLY JEWISH MYSTICISM
Book Details + Condition: Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ). First Edition, 1996. Hardcover with dust jacket. 229 pages with Bibliography and Index. "In exploring the social background of early Jewish mysticism, Scholastic Magic tells the story of how imagination and magic were made to serve memory and scholasticism. In the visionary literature that circulated between the fifth and ninth centuries, there are strange tales of ancient rabbis conjuring the angel known as Sar-Torah, the 'Prince of the Torah.' This angel endowed the rabbis themselves with spectacular memory and skill in learning, and then taught them the formulas for giving others these gifts..." [Publisher's review]. Chapters include:
- Mentalities of Ancient Judaism
- Memory, Torah, and Magic
- Sar-Torah Rituals and Related Texts
- Scholastic Magic
- Ritual and Purity
- And more.
In very good condition, with firm binding; interior is clean and free of markings, save name and info to ffep; jacket shows only minor shelf wear.
