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Somerville Changeling
Joined: 09 Sep 2007
Posts: 198
Location: Central Texas
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 Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 4:10 pm Post subject: Those pesky mazzikim! |
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From the online encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic and Mysticism:
When mazzikim go wild by Alfred Feinberg
It's a bad idea to do things in two's:
| Quote: |
And if a man forgot himself [and drank exactly two drinks] and happened to go out, what is his remedy? Let him take his right-hand thumb in his left hand and his left-hand thumb in his right hand and say thus: You [two thumbs] and I, surely that is three! [i.e. an odd number] But if the demon hears him and replies, You and I, surely that is four!? [i.e. three plus the demon are four] let him reply to him, You [the demon that is now four] and I are surely five[he finds something to add to the grouping]! And if he hears one saying, You and I are six, let him reply to him, You and I are seven. This once happened until [someone reached] a hundred and one, at which point the demon exploded (Pesachim 110a). |
It's been awhile since I posted links to the Fantastic Creatures at JHOM, but this is what they have to say about the mazzikim:
| Quote: |
Our rabbis taught:
Six things have been said about demons:
three ways in which they are like the ministering angels
and three ways they are like human beings.
Like the ministering angels:
They have wings; they fly from one end of the world
to the other, and they know what the future will bring.
Like human beings:
They eat and drink;
they reproduce; and they die. |
http://www.jhom.com/topics/fantasy/creatures.html
So, do we have MacTonnie's crypto terrestrials? Are they from a parallel dimension that is just next door and do they cross over to our own world? They are not spirits, and they share some characteristics with physical creatures. Makes me think that, if string theory is true, that there are beings made of exotic matter that possess free movement in the additional dimensions where our baryonic matter's restricted.
That would explain the appearance and disappearance of fairies, djinn, demons, mazzikim and yokai. It might explain why they are affected by materials like cold iron or silver in folklore, and why certain things repel them, though I think the best defense against any of these creatures is to simply wear one's shirt inside out.
I do that often enough by accident that it must work. I haven't sensed a fairy in my vicinity since 1978, and even then it was an odd feeling, an intuition, that i quickly shelved in the farthest recess of my cobwebbed mind.
_________________
My clan ancestor killed a wyrm. What Fortean feat did your ancestor accomplish?
Somerville clan motto: Fear God in Life
Material reductionism is the least substantial theory of everything that mankind has ever chosen to believe.
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