Author Description

The book before you is actually an unfinished dissertation that was submitted for review to the Hebrew and Judaic Studies department of New York University in the late ‘90s. For reasons too complex to go into here, the dissertation process was never completed. Rather than consign this paper to the dustbin of history, I have decided to publish it, with the hope that it might be helpful to someone out there, perhaps especially scholars in the field, and particularly those interested in comparative religion/mysticism. The subject is really quite an interesting one, dealing as it does with a phenomenon that appears to be a real and perennial occurrence. I refer to what is often referred to as “jettatore”, which is a person who is believed to have special or occult ocular power. Here is how Wikipedia presents this phenomenon: The jettatore (in Italian iettatore and sometimes menagrame ) is in the popular Italian tradition and especially Neapolitan a spell caster. A major figure in popular culture that is often found in Italian and international literature, it is linked to other superstitious practices and beliefs such as the sign of the horns or the evil eye. Indeed, this “jettatore” does appear to be a phenomenon that has been recognized across cultures, and is found all through world literature, including sacred scripture. This book looks primarily at two religious traditions in which we find numerous reference to the jettatore, namely the Jewish and Hindu traditions. However, far from labeling these beliefs “superstition”, this book attempts to get at the possibility that there is some deeper force at work here, one that cannot be easily explained away. Now twenty years later after the writing, I can only suggest that there is more that is going on here in life than meets the eye. I have lived, albeit briefly, with genuine mystics and acclaimed spiritual masters, and I have heard and seen things to baffle the mind. In my lived “secular” experience, I have also witnes