Exploring Dark Magic

At first glance, this page seems to be a normal page of a Hebrew manuscript. But upon closer inspection a brighter area can be seen in the lower half. Evidently, something was written there and was later erased. But what could it have been? And why would anyone remove a text? The processing of multispectral data revealed the unwanted passage completely. And together with CSMC scholars who specialise in Hebrew – and magic manuscripts – the text could be identified as a dark magic recipe for a potion. If you want to know more about this somewhat unusual ‘knowledge exchange’, have a look at the transcription and the manual provided by the colleagues from the completed project on ‘Magia Figurata: The Visual Effect of Jewish Magical Manuscripts of the Early Modern Era’.