ABSTRACT
A companion piece to Philip Cushman’s “The Golem must live, the Golem must die,” this chapter explores the lore of the Golem (Clay Man) in Jewish tradition—the artificial human being, fashioned from clay and activated by the magical use of divine names.This suggestive myth—once tied to mystical meditation and reflection on the human as both creator and creature—engendered folktales in medieval and modern times, with analogues in popular culture of the modern era. I trace the Golem theme and Jewish reflection on technology and magic, from its biblical origins, through apocalyptic literature, Judeo-Pythagoreanism, medieval pietism, and folklore, from antiquity to modern times—making special use of Walter Benjamin’s 1933 essay on the decline of experience through forces of technology and war. Cushman shows how psychologists, influencedby a “dominationist” ideology, ignore the needs of both patients and society at large by interpreting grief, trauma, and depression through clinical categories developedunreflectively by the profession for its own purposes, recently serving even the practice of torture. Of special interest is the mystical theme of the Hebrew letter aleph, which Kabbalah and Hasidism made the basis of meditative practice. Cushman thereby shows psychology’s double potential: to enhance or undermine humanexperience.
