In the town of Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee, a dangerous group practiced sorcery. Among their victims was Chananya, the nephew of Rabbi Yehoshua. They cast a spell on him — the sources call it keshafim, witchcraft — and the effect was precisely designed to shame him. He mounted a donkey and rode into the city of Tiberias on Shabbat, violating one of the most public prohibitions of the holy day while his body obeyed the spell and his mind watched helplessly.
Rabbi Yehoshua learned what had happened. He came to his nephew, brought a specific shemen — an anointing ointment — and combined it with counter-formulas of prayer, undoing the spell.
When Chananya was restored to himself, Rabbi Yehoshua did not let him stay in the Galilee. He sent his nephew to Babylon — far from the sorcerers of Capernaum, far from the shame, into a community that would know him only as a Jew in good standing.
Gaster's Exempla (No. 213b, 1924) and Kohelet Rabbah 1:8 preserve the story. The rabbis treated sorcery as real, dangerous, and answerable to Torah — not by counter-magic, but by holy oil, holy words, and a family member willing to come rescue the bewitched.