“Demons in Warsaw!” Possession in the Age of Mass Media

• In Event: Dybbuks, Demons, and Hauntings: Images of Possession in Jewish Eastern Europe

Abstract

Instances of demonic possession among Jews in Eastern Europe are commonly believed to have declined by the turn of the century. Possession did not disappear, however, as much as assume new forms. One such conceptual shift from a demonic to a parapsychological paradigm can be seen in the local press coverage from February 1914 of a series of preternatural disturbances in a Warsaw domicile initially attributed to demonic possession. Responsibility for the events quickly shifted to Tsipora (Pola) Kózka, a ten-year-old Jewish servant girl employed in the Bonifraterska Street apartment who was identified by Polish parapsychological investigators as a psychic medium of considerable power. As breathlessly reported in the back pages of Warsaw’s Yiddish and Polish daily newspapers, Kózka came to the attention of spiritualists from among the Polish aristocracy and intelligentsia. Passed from séance to séance, she was experimented on and even filmed, with the footage screened in theaters across Warsaw. The tremendous interest surrounding Kózka spurred public discussion of mediumship and its relation to traditional taxonomies of possession. This article examines the media discourse surrounding Kózka and her alleged powers, with particular attention given to her agency as a young girl whose bodily performance, in her case as a medium, was subject to considerable scrutiny. The story of Tsipora Kózka, long absent from the historical record, opens a window into the broader conceptual shifts surrounding possession in early-twentieth-century Poland.

Author

• Samuel Glauber, Washington University in Saint Louis