Quoted By:
>Jewish Witchcraft
>The relationship between Jews and magic and sorcery, and to a lesser extent sorcery, is confirmed by the presence of several Jewish converts in the witchcraft inquisitorial processes in the late 15th and 16th centuries, as well as what is often referred to in Hebrew manuscripts of experiments and one and the other consist in the description of the structure of the cosmos and the forces acting there: in short, they consist of the practical Kabbalah which led to an authentic flowering of medieval Jewish magic and contributed decidedly to extending the reputation of the Jews as magicians and sorcerers. A good overview of this framework of Kabbalistic practices can be found in the books of Perle Besserman
>Throughout the Middle Ages, Jewish communities distributed throughout western and central Europe had several magical treatises, some of which were from ancient times, while others were from medieval times. Among the early writings, Sefer ha-razim (Book of secrets) became very famous which is considered Talmudic, and Sefer Raziel ha-malakh (Book of the angel Raziel), a set of mystical, cosmological and magical writings. They were integrated in the 13th century into a unitary whole by the German mystic Eleazar ben Yehudah of Worms. These books base magical action on knowledge of the structure of the cosmos, knowing this, together with the sciences closest to cosmology (mathematics, geometry, astronomy and astrology), would allow the magician to make the superior forces act; They fit, therefore, into what is known as "erudite magical literature”. In these circles the thesis was born that the biblical king Solomon was the first magician. Later, a legend developed about this king, whose enormous library of magical books only Two magical texts would have survived: the will and the collarbone; the rest would have died in a fire
