Semitic Magic: Its Origins and Development

by R. Campbell Thompson

Overview

A study of magical practices including direct translations of spells, rituals, and incantations in ancient Western Asia, the birthplace of Western civilization. Using knowledge preserved in cuneiform incantation tablets from Assyria, aided by Rabbinic tradition, Syriac writings, and Arabic tales, Thompson tracks early magical practices through 3000 years to its vestigial traces in contemporary society. Smythe-sewn. Index. Appendix. Collectors: these special editions go quickly!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781609253813
Publisher:	Red Wheel/Weiser
Publication date:	02/01/2000
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
File size:	1 MB

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Semitic Magic

Its Origins and Development

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By R. Campbell Thompson

Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

Copyright © 2013 R. Campbell Thompson
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60925-381-3

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CHAPTER 1

THE DEMONS AND GHOSTS.

Throughout the Near East, from prehistoric times down to the present day, the inhabitants have been firmly convinced that supernatural beings, to use a general expression, are capable of inflicting grievous hurt upon them, and that the maladies and bodily ills to which they are subject are directly due to this baneful power. The modern natives of Irak, Syria, and Barbary have inherited from their forebears a legacy of superstitions and beliefs which show little variation from their pristine simplicity, and throw new light on many ancient Semitic ideas. Although in most instances the specific names for the demons of one Semitic dialect have no etymological connection with those of another (and the few cases in Hebrew and Syriac which are in opposition to this statement seem to have been borrowed at a comparatively late period) the ideas which are still current show us that the more ancient forms of hobgoblins, vampires, spooks, and devils exist under various titles with the several attributes that were assigned to them by the Babylonians, who cultivated one of the most elaborate and intricate systems of ancient magic that we know. In making an examination into the ancient witchcraft we shall therefore avail ourselves of as much of modern folklore as may serve to elucidate the older superstitions, and by a comparison of the magic of the ancients with that of their descendants try to obtain some glimpse of the beliefs of the primitive Semite.

It will be admitted readily that, when once a system of demonology has been evolved, at least three classes of spirits must be recognized. The simplest and most universal form of these was the disembodied spirit, the souls of men or women who, having died, had changed their earthly shape for an incorporeal one. Second to this comes the supernatural being who never was earthly, a phantom or demon, often of such grotesque or horrid shape as savage imagination might invent. Lastly, we have a class of demons half-ghostly, half-human, the offspring of intermarriage between human beings and the spirit world, just as we find demigods of half divine origin in all mythologies. Taking each of these classes in turn, we shall be able, by a comparison of the different ideas prevailing among the Semitic and other peoples of the East, to form some substantial basis for a critical insight into this phase of theology. Inasmuch as the Assyrian incantations show a systematized demonology, which is at the same time the earliest at our disposal, the several Assyrian names for devils form an excellent starting-point in the various species.

The first class, then, is that of the disembodied spirit. The main idea concerning this ghost is that it returns to this world from the place of the departed spirits, making its presence observed either by a visible appearance as it was in the flesh, or by making an unseen attack on some man so that he is stricken down by disease. The reasons for its restlessness are many: the soul finds no peace if its corporeal shape is unburied, or if its descendants cease to feed it by paying it its due rites, libations, or sacrifices, or for a hundred other causes which are frequently set forth at length in the cuneiform incantations. Among the Assyrians the word used for this ghost was edimmu, and like other nations they believed that the soul could return to earth, and to these ghosts they ascribed many of their bodily ills. In ordinary circumstances, when a person died and was duly buried his soul entered the underworld, "the House of Darkness, the seat of the god Irkalla, the house from which none that enter come forth again," where it was compelled to feed on dust and mud. Of Sheôl among the Hebrews, according to the most primitive beliefs, we have very little direct knowledge. In historic times its principal characteristic is darkness, the word for 'dust' being used as a synonym. It was under the earth, and was described as a place from which one did not return, and, as in the Assyrian picture in the Descent of Ishtar, it is portrayed as a city with gates. The dead would be known by their dress—the old man by his robe, the soldier by his sword. But Sheôl is independent of Yahweh in early times, and there is little change down to the fourth century B.C. In the primitive belief, when a man dies he is removed from the jurisdiction of Yahweh, and there are no more relations between them.

The Rabbis believed that there was "a place called [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], which derives its name from the fact that it is assigned to the departed spirits of men. It represents a building with a courtyard, encircled by a fence. Before the courtyard flows a river, adjoining which is a field. Every day Dumah leads out the spirits to pasture in the field and to drink of the river." The Kabbalists believed in metempsychosis from the body of one species into the body of another species. Some of the later sages of the Kabbala say that the soul of an unclean person will transmigrate into an unclean animal, or into creeping things or reptiles. For one form of uncleanness, the soul will be invested with the body of a Gentile, who will become a proselyte; for another, the soul will pass into the body of a mule; for others, it transmigrates into an ass, a woman of Ashdod, a bat, a rabbit or a hare, a she-mule or a camel. Ishmael transmigrated first into the she-ass of Balaam, and subsequently into the ass of Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair.

According to Sale, the Mohammedans have various beliefs concerning the future destination of the souls of the dead. Some say that they stay near the tombs with the liberty of going where they please; others that they are with Adam in the lowest heaven, or in Zemzem, or that they stay near the graves for seven days, or that they are all in the trumpet which is to wake the dead, or finally, that they take the form of white birds under the throne of God. When an infidel comes forth from the grave, his works shall be presented to him under the ugliest form he ever beheld, and it shall ride upon him. Certain of the Arabs, believing in a metempsychosis, thought that, of the blood near the dead person's brain, was formed a bird named Hamâh, which once in a hundred years visited the sepulchre; though others say, this bird is animated by the soul of him who is unjustly slain, and continually cries oskuni, oskuni, "give me to drink," meaning of the murderer's blood, till his death be avenged; and then it flies away. When a corpse is laid in the grave, the Mohammedans say he is received by an angel, who gives him notice of the coming of the two examiners, which are two black angels of a terrible appearance named Monker and Nakir. If a man pass by the grave of a friend, he should hail the soul with a greeting.

The Syriac beliefs are given in the Book of the Bee: "When the soul goes forth from the body, as Abbâ Isaiah says, the angels go with it: then the hosts of darkness go forth to meet it, seeking to seize it and examine it, if there be anything of theirs in it ... As to where the souls abide from the time they leave their bodies until the resurrection, some say that they are taken up to heaven, that is, to the region of the spirit, where the celestial hosts dwell. Others say that they go to Paradise, that is, to the place which is abundantly supplied with good things of the mystery of the revelations of God; and that the souls of sinners lie in darkness in the abyss of Eden outside Paradise. Others say that they are buried with their bodies; that is to say, as the two were buried in God at baptism, so also will they now dwell in Him until the day of resurrection. Others say that they stand at the mouth of the graves and await their Redeemer; that is to say, they possess the knowledge of the resurrection of their bodies. Others say that they are as it were in a slumber, because of the shortness of the time."

The Yezidis (the devil-worshippers of the Sinjar Hills in Mesopotamia) say that the spirits of wicked men take up their abode in dogs, pigs, donkeys, horses, or, after suffering a while, rehabilitate as men. The spirits of the good inhabit the air to show the secrets of our world.

Now if the attentions of its friends on earth should cease, and the soul should find nothing to eat or drink, then it was driven by force of hunger to come back to earth to demand its due. This is described on an Assyrian tablet which begins—

"The gods which seize (upon man)
Have come forth from the grave;
The evil wind-gusts
Have come forth from the grave;
To demand the payment of rites and the pouring of libations
They have come forth from the grave;
All that is evil of those seven
Hath come like a whirlwind."

Or another—

"The evil Spirit, the evil Demon, the evil Ghost, the evil Devil,
From the earth have come forth;
From the Pure Abode unto earth they have come forth;
In heaven they are unknown,
On earth they are not understood.
They neither stand nor sit.
He cannot eat food nor drink water."

In this latter text, however, the reference is more to devils or demons than to ghosts, but, as will be seen later, the classes of spirits are much confused with one another.

One of the most interesting passages in the Gilgamish legend describes the raising of the spectre of Ea-bani from Hades. The Babylonian hero Gilgamish attempts to see his friend Ea-bani, who has died, and the god Nergal is directed by Ea to restore Ea-bani to earth. The shade of the dead man rises through an opening made by the god in the earth "like the wind," a transparent spectre in human shape. Ea-bani then describes what he has seen in the underworld—

"The man whose corpse lieth in the desert—
Thou and I have often seen such an one—
His spirit resteth not in the earth;
The man whose spirit hath none to care for it—
Thou and I have often seen such an one—
The dregs of the vessel, the leavings of the feast,
And that which is cast out into the street are his food."

This last is also the condition of the neglected spirit according to the Egyptian theology. If offerings were not paid to the deceased in Egypt, he was obliged to wander into unclean places to eat such filth and drink such dirty water as he might find in the course of his wretched wanderings.

A similar belief in necromancy is shown among the Hebrews, for Saul goes to visit a "woman with a familiar spirit" at En-dor. She brings up Samuel out of the earth, and he answers the questions which Saul wishes to ask. The very name of a class of magicians, mueslÛ edimmu, "Raiser of the departed spirit," among the Assyrians, shows how great a hold such practices had over the people. In Mohammedan tradition Christ raises Shem, the son of Noah, who, thinking he had been called to judgment, came out of his grave with his head half grey, "whereas men did not grow grey in his days"; after which he immediately died again.

If the bones of the dead were removed from the tomb, the spirit at once became restless, and was compelled to roam about the earth homeless. Assurbanipal relates how he desecrated the tombs of the kings of Elam by carrying away their bones and causing their rites to cease, that their spirits might have no rest. In Egypt Cambyses had Amasis' body dragged forth from its tomb to be mangled and burnt. On the other hand, Samas-sum-ukin relates that he reinstated the rites and libations to the kings who had preceded him, which had, for a time, been abrogated.

It was usual to curse future desecrators: "May his name be destroyed, may his seed be blotted out, may his life be ended in want and famine, may his corpse be cast out that it may have no tomb." On the sarcophagus of Eshmunazar the Phænician king has inscribed a curse on all those who shall disturb his rest: "May they have no resting-place with the Shades, nor be buried in a grave, nor have son or seed." And there is evidently some idea of this in Jeremiah's prophecy: "At that time, saith the Lord, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves: and they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshipped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried; they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth."

Similarly, in the tomb inscriptions of Hejra in Arabia, written in Nabatean about the beginning of our era, the maker of a family vault frequently calls down curses on future meddlers. "May Dusara and ManÛthu and Kaisah curse all who shall sell this tomb or buy it, or pledge it or give it away, or let it out for hire, or write any inscription thereon, or bury therein any except those whose names are mentioned, for this tomb and inscription are haram, as the haram of the Nabateans and Shalameans." The ancient superstitions on the effect of disturbing a grave reappear in the modern Mohammedan opinion; it was by the best advice that Lord Kitchener caused the destruction of the Mahdi's body after the battle of Omdurman in 1898.

Whether the Assyrians believed in kismet is uncertain. In the legend of ZÛ we read of the Tablets of Destiny being stolen by ZÛ from Heaven. simtu is the usual word for 'fate,' and a common euphemism for 'death' is to say simtu ubilsu, 'fate carried him off.'

Ahuraku zarÛ simtum, ubtil Agarinnu alitti ittar KUR-NU-GI.

"I rest alone; the father, destiny hath carried him off,
The mother that bore me hath gone to the land whence none return."

Marduk is the god musim simâte sa ilâni kalama, "that determineth the fates of all the gods." But the phrase ina Ûm la simtisu urruhis imtut (Sennacherib, v, 2), "he died prematurely in a day la simtisu," shows that the idea is more that of 'the allotted span,' here at any rate, than of any predestination. A possible reference to Tablets of Destiny is to be found in Exod. xxxii, 33, "Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book" (of Yahweh). Among the Arabs Al-lauhu' 1-MahfÛz is the name for 'the preserved tablet' on which the decrees of God are recorded with reference to mankind.

The possibility of avoiding death is the subject of an incident in the Epic of Gilgamish. After Ea-bani's death, Gilgamish, in terror of such a fate, goes in search of Sit-napishtim: "I, indeed, will not die like Ea-bani; woe hath entered my body; I fear death." But Sit-napishtim tells him that he cannot escape the common lot, but there is a wonderful plant called sîbu isahir amelu ("the old man made young to manhood"). Gilgamish starts in search of it, saying that he will eat of it and return to his youth. He finds the plant and comes on a pool of cool water in which be bathes, but a snake, a denizen of the spring, scents the plant and darts out and carries it off, leaving Gilgamish lamenting over its loss.

Under certain circumstances the soul of a dead man never entered the underworld. For instance, it is a universal belief that the departed spirit can find no rest so long as its body remains unburied. In the Assyrian incantations we find long lists of ghosts exorcised, each severally described with the reason of its return. The reason that these lists are so long is that the sorcerer, as has been explained elsewhere, may show that he knows the name of the particular ghost he is exorcising.

"Whether thou art a ghost that hath come from the earth ...
Or one that lieth dead in the desert,
Or one that lieth dead in the desert, uncovered with earth ...
Or a ghost unburied,
Or a ghost that none careth for,
Or a ghost with none to make offerings,
Or a ghost with none to pour libations,
Or a ghost that hath left no posterity."

"We may see in these last lines one of the reasons for the great desire of the Semites for children, particularly males, to perpetuate the family name. Indeed, this is not surprising when it is remembered how universal a custom it is to sacrifice to the dead, with the duty naturally devolving upon the children. It is as common among Semites as among other nations. It was clearly a belief among the Assyrians; it is the same with the Hebrews: "I have not eaten thereof in my mourning, neither have I put away thereof, being unclean, nor given thereof for the dead." An Assyrian text describes the feast of an evil spirit: "Thy food is the food of ghosts, thy drink is the drink of ghosts." In the Nestorian burial service it is said that the dead are more abundantly helped by kÛrbânê and requiems and alms which are done in their behalf, "and they attain rest of their souls and expiation of their sins, without doubt." Among the Sabians a feast used to be made to the dead in the month of Tisri. Each man would buy all sorts of food, meat, or fresh and dried fruit, and cook sweetmeats, burning them all night for the dead, and also pouring libations on the fire. They had also a curious custom of burning the thigh-bone of a camel for the "Dog of the Witch" (Hekate), that he may not bark at the dead. The Persians used to believe that the ghosts of their ancestors were in the habit of returning to one of their feasts (Tabarjân).
(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Semitic Magic by R. Campbell Thompson. Copyright © 2013 R. Campbell Thompson. Excerpted by permission of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Preface          

List of Abbreviations          

Introduction          

I. The Demons and Ghosts          

II. Demoniac Possession and Tabu          

III. Sympathetic Magic          

IV. The Atonement Sacrifice          

V. The Redemption of the Firstborn          

Appendix          

Index          

List of Biblical Quotations