Was "skill" at casting out "spirits" and "dybbuks" the reason for the popularization of anti-rational movements within Judaism?
Allan Nadler writes in Jewish Ideas Daily:
…In late Roman antiquity, the demonic possession of individuals was a belief so widely accepted that the ability to "cast out" was one reason why numbers of Jews in first-century Palestine became convinced that Jesus of Nazareth was their divinely anointed savior. Such casting-out was, indeed, the very first of Jesus' miracles recorded in the Gospels (Mark 1:23-26). While, for almost a millennium after the talmudic era, there are no clearly recorded accounts of either possessions or exorcisms, the belief regained prominence with the rise of the Lurianic school of kabbalah in the mid-16th century.
The kabbalists of Safed developed elaborate theories about the transmigration of souls, both benevolent and malevolent; in dealing with the latter, they touted the expertise of Rabbi Isaac Luria and his disciples in banishing what came to be known as dybbuks—malevolent, "clinging" spirits from the netherworld. It cannot be entirely coincidental that in both Judaism and Catholicism, a formal liturgy for the rite of exorcism began to develop at around the same time. (The Safed kabbalists were mostly descendants of Marranos who had lived as Catholics for generations.).…
A recent book by J. H. Chajes, a scholar of kabbalah, offers a history of dybbuk possessions and exorcisms from the 16th century until the eve of modernity. As Chajes establishes, Isaac Luria's own fame as an expert banisher spawned a cottage industry among itinerant kabbalists that reached its heights in the 18th century. Professional baalei Shem, masters of the Divine name known mostly for healing the ill and the infertile, might also be capable of exorcising spirits from individuals, homes, synagogues, and sometimes entire Jewish villages. Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, was among those renowned for prowess in this area.…
In other words, the majority of haredim are following Jewish versions of witch doctors.