ארכיון Witchcraft - Prof. Marianna Ruah-Midbar Shapiro (PhD)

“The Academy of Human Spirit” Podcasts hosted by Prof. Marianna Ruah-Midbar Shapiro

This page includes links to podcasts (all of them in Hebrew) prepared and hosted by Marianna Ruah-Midbar Shapiro in her program on "Mahut HaChayim" (The Essence of Life) Radio. The program was called "The Academy of Human Spirit". (In Hebrew "Ruah" means "spirit" and the Humanities are called "sciences of spirit", so the program was titled "The Academy of Ruah"). Each episode of the program, there was a central theme and one main interviewee (and another in addition).

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December 19, 2023

Read more about the article Lecture: Recycled Witches – The Retelling of Narratives from Rabbinical Literature within Contemporary Alternative Spirituality

Lecture: Recycled Witches – The Retelling of Narratives from Rabbinical Literature within Contemporary Alternative Spirituality

This lecture presents a surprising and innovative spiritual-alternative strategy of Israeli-Jews to refer to the Jewish tradition - an interpretation of the tradition while identifying with the anti-heroines of an ancient Jewish legend. In this way, the characteristic approach of the "spiritual-but-not-religious" (SBNR) trend that criticizes the religious establishment is expressed, while adopting the criticism inherent in the ancient Jewish sources. In our case it's the retelling of an ancient Jewish legend - about a witch hunt conducted by Rabbi Shimon ben Shatach in Ashkelon in the second century BC.

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October 13, 2023

Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Critical theory / Magic and paganism / Methodology and models / Mind and psychology / Popular culture and mass media / Postmodernism / Science/medicine and technology / Typology and comparative study

Lecture: Versions of Theme Design Reality Creation in New Age Culture

We create our own reality - this is a major idea in the contemporary cultural discourse. But how? From the Matrix to a magic stick, from positive psychology to mind control technics. Various lectures presented the research on this spiritual (or perhaps actually secularized) theme...

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December 5, 2022

Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Critical theory / Magic and paganism / Methodology and models / Mind and psychology / Popular culture and mass media / Postmodernism / Science/medicine and technology / Typology and comparative study

Article: The Creating-Our-Reality Motif in Contemporary Western Popular Spirituality

One of the most prominent themes in the contemporary spiritual discourse, as well as in the general popular discourse, is that we are those who create our own world. This idea has various versions. For instance, the positive psychology version depicts how thoughts and expextations may create a reality through the change of behaviour; the science fiction version sees us as players in a virtual space that choose and shape their enviroment; the magical version teaches us to cast spells of reality; and more. This research analyses the popular spiritual discourse on the creation of reality, and thereby reviels a few insights on the contemporary cultural tendencies, the cultural contradictions, and the emergence of a new ethic.

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December 4, 2022

Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Disputation or conflict / Feminism gender and sex / Geography / History / Identity / Israel / Judaism and Kabbalah / Magic and paganism / Myth / Popular culture and mass media

Lecture: “Between Meron and Ashkelon: The Comeback of an Old Witch-Hunt Story”

This lecture opens with the Neo-Shamanism in Israel, and presents two modes in which the local alternative spirituality approaches Judaism - positively and negatively. The lecture focuses on the demonstration of a negative connection with Judaism, in an Israeli Neo-Shaman text. The text is an alternative nrrative of a rabbinic legend of a witch hunt conducted by one of the Rabbis in Ashkelon in the days of the Hasmonean Kingdom. The text was analysed in a few publications (one in English) . The lecture took part at a conference in Zefat Academic College.

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June 1, 2022

Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Disputation or conflict / Feminism gender and sex / History / Identity / Israel / Judaism and Kabbalah / Magic and paganism / Myth / Popular culture and mass media / Typology and comparative study

Article: The Witch Hunt in Ashkelon as Retold by Contemporary Spiritualities: From Embarrassment to Treasure Trove

Once upon a time, thousands of years ago, dozens of witches operated at the promiscuous city Ashkelon. This study (some 8,000 words; and a similar one published in English - as follows) deals with contemporary spiritual interpretations of an ancient Jewish legend - on a witch hunt executed by Rabbi Shim'on ben Shatach at Ashkelon in the 2nd century B.C.. It presents a comparison of three spiritual leaders in Israel, each re-designing the old story in a different way, thus expressing various values - in relation to Judaism, to their feminism's character, and to the place of magic in the world. The article was published in the anthology "Between Times - Ritual and Text in a Changing Society", edited by Haim Hazan, Rachel Shar'abi, and Inbal Esther Sikurel, in the Hermeneutics and Cuture series at Carmel publishimg house.

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January 5, 2022

Read more about the article Article: Witch-Hunt or Women’s Oppression? The Secularization and Re-Enchantment of the Witches of Ashkelon Tale by Contemporary Spiritualities’ Leaders

Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Disputation or conflict / Feminism gender and sex / History / Identity / Israel / Judaism and Kabbalah / Magic and paganism / Myth / Popular culture and mass media / Science/medicine and technology / Typology and comparative study

Article: Witch-Hunt or Women’s Oppression? The Secularization and Re-Enchantment of the Witches of Ashkelon Tale by Contemporary Spiritualities’ Leaders

This study (some 10,500 words; and a similar one published in Hebrew- as follows) deals with contemporary spiritual interpretations of an ancient Jewish legend - on a witch hunt executed by Rabbi Shim'on ben Shatach at Ashkelon in the 2nd century B.C.. It presents a comparison of three spiritual leaders in Israel, each re-designing the old story in a different way, thus expressing various values - in relation to Judaism, to their feminism's character, and to the place of magic in the world. The article was published in the important journal of Jewish Studies, pronted by the Oxford Centre for Hebrew & Jewish Studies - Journal of Jewish Studies.

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December 14, 2021