A Recipe to See Demons

[Aramaic] If someone wants to know about them [i.e., the demons], let him bring sieved ashes and surround his bed [with them], and in the morning he will see something like the feet of a cock. If someone wants to see them [demons], let him bring the afterbirth of a firstborn black [female] cat, daughter of a firstborn black [female] cat, and roast it in a fire and grind it and fill his eyes with it, and he will see them [demons]. And he should put it in an iron tube and seal it with a seal, lest [the contents] be stolen from it, and to seal its opening, that in this way one is not harmed.

R. Bevay bar Abaye tried this. He saw [demons] and was harmed. The rabbis came and sought mercy for him, and he was healed.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 2: Emerging Judaism.

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