Dojo Darelir, the School of Xenograg the Sorcerer

Exorcism in Babylonia & Assyria

All down the ages good and evil have been in opposition as two contending forces in perpetual conflict, so that the ritual of expulsion has been an essential element in sanctification and the impulsion of spiritual power and insight. Consequently, in this dual task of getting rid of evil in order to secure good the exorcist has exercised a function complementary to that of the seer. Not infrequently, as we have seen, the medicine-man or shaman has been responsible both for riddance and induction, and at a higher cultural level in Babylonia and Assyria the soothsayer and exorcist originally were hardly distinguishable. In process of time, however, the driving out of demons from human beings and buildings by incantations and ritual expulsions were separated from the interpretation of omens and astrological portents. This was necessitated by the development of an elaborate system of demonology entailing jinns, ghouls, vampires, malignant disembodied ghosts (edimmu), and vast hordes of hostile spirits (utukku, galla, labartu, labasu and ahhazu, lila, sûdu and lamassu) which lurked in graves and solitary places, on mountains and in dens of the earth, and in marshes. They roamed about the streets, sliding through the doors and walls of houses, and were borne on the wings of the mighty winds that swept the land. Wherever they occurred they brought misfortune, sickness and death in their train. Small wonder, then, that the exorcist was in constant demand. Thus, the cuneiform texts from the middle of the third millennium [B.C.E.] onwards bear witness to the numerous incantations employed to expel evil spirits and the ghosts of the dead. In the case of the latter the exorcist threatened that no rites would be performed on their behalf until they pad departed:

 

(Whatever spirit thou may be), until thou art removed:

Until thou departest from the man, the son of his god,

Thou shalt have no food to eat,

Thou shalt have no drink to drink.

 

In the healing of disease a Word of Power was uttered in the name of Ea, the third god of the highest triad, the Lord of Wisdom and ruler of the healing waters, and his son Marduk, who as the god of Babylon became the head of the pantheon. Standing nearest to mankind these deities were invoked by the aid of the life-giving waters under the control of Ea and his mediator (Marduk). "Marduk hath seen him (the sick person) and hath entered the house of his father Ea, and hath said, 'Father, headache, from the underworld hath gone forth.'" Then follows the prescription for the patient ending usually with the incantation, "By Heaven be ye exorcized! By earth be ye exorcized!", the appropriate god concerned with a particular disease being addressed with this formula. But in addition to pronouncing the name of the divine being in which the magic virtue resides, the exorcist had to mention that of the demon to be driven forth. This involved the recitation of long lists of devils or ghosts in order to include the one that was the cause of the malady. The patient was then sprinkled with water, censed, surrounded with flour, or some other magically protective substance, such as black and white yam fastened to his couch, the exorcist holding in his hand a branch of the sacred tamarisk, "the powerful weapon of Anu", the father of the great gods, during the incantation.

From the potency ascribed to water the "curse of Eridu" (siptu, i.e. the curse of expiation) derived its efficacy as the incantation par excellence in overcoming the bans of demons, and in the consecration of sacred objects. The words of the formula have not been recorded but doubtless they contained the name of Ea since its mystic power was ascribed to the water-god, though originally it was the life-giving water itself that drove forth the malevolent influences and freed those beset by them from their evil contagions by absorbing them into itself. The act of expulsion (kuppuru) sometimes involved the offering of a kid or sucking-pig for the purpose of driving the demon into the body of the victim which was then destroyed. In a Sumerian ritual-text, Ea is said to command Marduk to take a scapegoat in the form of a horned wild goat to the king bound by a curse, and place its head against his (the king's) head so that "his poisonous tabu into his mouth may be cast".

 

May the king be pure, may he be clean,

He who knows not the curse by which he is cured,

From his body may he chase it away.

May the demon of his device stand aside.

 

Similarly, seven loaves of pure dough were carried into the desert after the exorcist had transferred to them the evil incurred by the breaking of a tabu in order to remove the pollution. The Assyrians modelled the dough into an effigy of the sick man, censed and sprinkled it with water, but whether or not it was then treated as a "sin-carrier", or scapegoat, is not recorded. But a specially woven white and black woollen cord bound upon the hand, head and foot of a man under a curse was sent forth to the desert as an expulsion rite.

Surrounded on every side with such an array of ill-disposed forces personified in a variety of forms and guises, the exorcist occupied a position of supreme importance. Not only was he in constant demand in his capacity of "physician", but he was called upon to assist at the consecration of temples, at funerals, and the seasonal ceremonies—in short, on all occasions when hostile spiritual powers might be expected to be lying in wait or already in possession of places, objects, or persons. He was indeed one of the principal functionaries in Babylonia and Assyria and without his aid and intervention at every critical juncture evil was almost certain to befall the nation and its people. In consequence he was held in high esteem, as was Eridu, the seat of worship of Ea and the original centre of the rites of exorcism. But the office had its responsibilities since failure to effect a cure, or more particularly the infliction of any injury on the patient, was calculated to render the practitioner liable to a fine on the principle of the jus talionis. This, however, applied more to the "surgeon" than to the exorcist proper who was only concerned with internal diseases attributed to demons. In this domain he reigned supreme.

— E. O. James, The Nature and Function of Priesthood, pp. 49-52