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This article on the
Semites applies to the more
ancient divisions of the race, such as the Babylonians and
Assyrians, and the Hebrews in Biblical times., For later
Semitic occultism see Kabala, Arabs, etc. In ancient
Babylon, and Chaldea, magic was of course a department of
priestly activity, and in Mesopotamia we find a sect of
priests, the Asipu, set apart for the practice of magic,
which in their case probably consisted of hypnotism, the
casting out of demons, the banning of troublesome spirits
and so forth. The Baru again were augurs who consulted the
oracles on the future by the inspection of the entrails of
animals and the flight of birds, " the observation of oil
in water, the secret of Anu, Bel, and Ea, the tablet of
the gods, the sachet of leather of the oracles of the
heavens and __ earth, the wand of cedar dear to the great
gods^— ^Fhese— ^ priests of Baru and Asipu were clothed
investments peculiar to their rank, which they changed
frequently during the •ceremonies in which they took part.
In the tablets we find kings making frequent enquiry
through these priestly castes ; and in a tablet ot-Sp'par,
we find treated the installation of a Baru to the
Sun-temple, and also Sennach-rib seeking through the Baru
the causes of his father's violent death. The Asipu again
were exorcists, who removed tabus and laid ghosts. We find
an Asipu's functions set forth in the following poem : —
" Incantation:—
(The man) of Ea am I,
(The man) of Damkina am I,
The messenger of Marduk am I,
My spell is the spell of Ea,
My incantation is the incantation of Marduk,
The circle of Ea is in my hand,
The tamarisk, the powerful weapon of Anu,
In my hand I hold,
The date-spathe, mighty in decision,
In my hand I hold."
" Incantation :
He that stilleth all to rest, that pacifieth all,
By whose incantation everything is at peace,
He is the great Lord Ea,
Stilling all to rest, and pacifying all,
By whose incantation everything is at peace.
When I draw nigh unto the sick man
All shall be assuaged.
I am the magician born of Eridu,
Begotten in Eridu and Subari.
When I draw nigh unto the sick man
May Ea, King of the Deep, safeguard me ! "
" Incantation:—
O Ea, King of the Deep, to see .....
I, the magician, am thy slave.
March thou on my right hand,
Assist (me) on my left;
Add thy pure spell to mine,
Add thy pure voice to mine,
Vouchsafe (to me) pure words,
Make fortunate the utterances of my mouth,
Ordain that my decisions be happy,
Let me be blessed where'er I tread,
Let the'man whom I (now) touch be blessed.
Before me may lucky thoughts be spoken.
After me may a lucky finger be pointed.
Oh that thou wert my guardian genius,
And my guardian spirit!
O God that blesseth, Marduk,
Let me be blessed, where'er my path may be!
Thy power shall god and man proclaim;
This man shall do thy service,
And I too, the magician thy slave."
" Unto the house on entering .... Samas is before me, Sin
(is) behind (me), Nergal (is) at (my) right hand, Ninib
(is) at my left hand ; When I draw near unto the sick man,
When I lay my hand on the head of the sick man. May a
kindly Spirit, a kindly Guardian, stand at my side."
The third caste was the Zammaru, who sang or chanted
certain ceremonials.
The lower ranks of sorcery were represented by the
JKassapu and Kassaptu, the wizard and witch, who, as
elsewhere, practised black magic, and who are stoutly com-Tbatedj
by the priest-magician caste. We find in the code of
Hammurabi a stringent law against the professors of black
magic :—" If a man has charged a man with sorcery and has
not justified himself, he who is charged with sorcery
shall go to the river, he shall plunge into the river, and
if the river overcome him, he who accused him shall take
to himself his house. If the river makes that man to be
innocent, and he be saved, he who accused him shall be put
to death. He who plunged into the river shall take to
himself the house of him who accused him." This will
recall the test for a witch, that if thrown into a pond,
if she sinks she is innocent, but if she floats she is a
witch indeed. Another series of tablets deals with the
black magician and the witch who are represented as
roaming the streets, entering houses, and prowling through
towns, stealing the love of men, and withering the beauty
of women. The exorcist goes on to say that he has made an
image of the witch, and he calls upon the fire-god to burn
it. He seizes the mouth, tongue, eyes, feet, and other
members of the witch, and piously prays that Sin may cast
her into an abyss of water and fire, and that her face may
grow yellow and green. He fears that the witch is
directing a like sorcery against himself, that she sits
making spells against him in the shade of the wall,
fashioning images of him. But he sends against her the
haltappan plant and sesame to undo her spells and force
back the words into her mouth. • He devoutly trusts that
the images she has fashioned will assume her own
character, and that her spells may recoil upon herself.
Another tablet expresses the desire that the god of night
may smite the witch in her magic, that the three watches
of the night may loose her evil sorcery, that her mouth
may be fat and her tongue salt, that the words of evil
that she hath spoken may be poured out like tallow, and
that the magic she is working be crumbled like salt. The
tablets abound in magical matter and in them we have the
actual wizardry in vogue at the time they were written,
which runs at least from the seventh century B.C. onwards
until the time when the cuneiform ceased to be used.
Chaldean magic was renowned throughout the world,
particularly, however, its astrological side. Isaiah says
" Let now the astrologers, star-gazers, monthly
prognosticators, stand up and save thee from the things
that shall come upon thee." In the book of Daniel, we find
the magicians called Chaldeans, and up to the present time
occultists have never tired of singing the praises of the
Chaldean magi. Strabo and JJlian allude to their knowledge
of astrology, as did Diodorus Siculus, and it is supposed
to have been a Chaldean magician (Ethanes who introduced
his science into Greece, which he entered with Xerxes.
The great library of Assurbanipal, king of Assyria, who
died in 626 B.C., affords us first-hand knowledge of
Assyrian magic. He gathered together numerous volumes from
the cities of Babylonia, and storing them in his great
library at Nineveh, had them copied and translated. In
fact letters have been discovered from Assurbanipal to
some of his officials, giving instructions for the copying
of certain incantations. Many grimoires too come from
Babylonia, written during the later empire,—the best known
of which are the series entitled Maklu, burning; Utukki
limnuti, evil spirits; Labartu, hag-demon; and Nis kati,
raising of the hand. There are also available many
ceremonial texts which throw considerable light on magical
practice. The Maklu for example contains eight tablets of
incantations and spells against wizards and witches—the
general idea running through it being to instruct the
bewitched person how to manufacture figures of his
enemies, and thus destroy them. The series dealing with
the exorcism of evil spirits enumerates demons, goblins
and ghosts, and consists of at least sixteen tablets. They
are for the use of the exorcist in driving out devils from
possessed people, and this is to be accomplished by
invoking the aid of the gods, so that the demons may be
laid under a divine tabu. The demon who possesses the
unfortunate victim must be described in the most minute
manner. The series dealing with the Labartu or hag-demon,
who is a kind of female devil who delights in attacking
children, gives directions for making a figure of the
Labartu and the incantations to be repeated over it. The
magician and philosopher appear to have worked together in
Assyria, for we find medical men constantly using
incantations to drive out demons, and incantations are
often associated with prescriptions. Medical magic indeed
appears to have been of much the same sort as we find
amongst the American Indians and peoples in a like
barbarian condition of existence.
We find the doctrine of the Incommunicable Name
established among the early Semites, as among the
Egyptians : the secret name of a god, which when
discovered gave the speaker complete power over him by its
mere utterance. The knowledge of the name, or description,
of the person or demon the magician directs his charm
against, is also essential to success. Drugs also, to
which were originally ascribed the power vouchsafed by the
gods for the welfare of mankind, were-supposed to aid
greatly in exorcism. In Assyrian sorcery, Ea and Marduk
are the most powerful gods,—the latter being appealed to
as intermediary between man and his father, Ea : indeed
the legend of Marduk going to his father for advice was
commonly repeated in incantations. When working against an
individual too, it was necessary to have something
belonging to him,—clippings of his hair, or nails if
possible. The possessed person was usually -washed, the
principal of cleansing probably underlying this ceremony.
An incantation called the Incantation of Eridu was often
prescribed, and this must relate to some such cleansing,
for Eridu is the Home of Ea, the Sea-god. A formula for
exorcising or washing away a demon, Rabesu states that the
patient is to be sprinkled with clean water twice seven
times. Of all water none was so sacred as the Euphrates,
and water from it was frequently used for charms and
exorcisms. Fumigation with a censor was also employed by
the Assyrians for exorcism, but the possessed person was
often guarded from the attack of fiends by placing him in
the middle of an enchanted circle of flour, through which
it was thought no spirit could break. Wearing the glands
from the mouth of a fish was also a charm against
possession. In making a magic circle, the sorcerer usually
formed seven little winged figures to set before the god
Nergal, with a long spell, which states that he has
completed the usurtu or magic circle with a sprinkling of
lime. The wizard further prays that the incantation may be
performed for his patient by the god. This would seem to
be a prototype of the circle in use amongst magicians of
mediaeval times. Says Campbell Thompson in his Semitic
Magic :—
" Armed with all these things—the word of power, the
acquisition of some part of the enemy, the use of the
magic circle and holy water, and the knowledge of the
magical properties of substances—the ancient warlock was
well fitted for his trade. He was then capable of defying
hostile demons or summoning friendly spirits, of driving
out disease or casting spells, of making amulets to guard
the credulous who came to him. Furthermore, he had a
certain stock-in-trade of tricks which were a steady
source of revenus. Lovesick youths and maidens always
hoped for some result from his philtres or love-charms; at
the demand of jealousy, he was ever ready to put hatred
between husband and wife; and for such as had not the
pluck or skill even to use a dagger on a dark night, his
little effigies, pierced with pins, would bring death to a
rival. He was at once a physician and wonder-worker for
such as would pay him fee."
"Among the more modern Semites magic is greatly in vogue
in many forms, some of them quite familiar to Europeans :
indeed we find in the Arabian Nights edited by Lane, a
story of old women riding on a broom-stick. Among
Mahommedans the wizard is thought to deserve death by
reason of the fact that he is an unbeliever. Witches are
fairly common in Arabic lore, and we usually find them
figuring as sellers of potions and philtres. The European
witch is usually supposed to be able to leave her dwelling
at night by sprinkling some of the ashes of the hearth on
the forehead of her husband, whereby he sleeps soundly
till the morning. This is identical with French mediaeval
practice. In Arab folk tales the moghrebi is the sorcerer
who has converse with demons, and we find many such in the
Old and New Testaments, as well as diviners and other
practitioners of the occult arts. In the Sanhedrin, Rabbi
Akiba defines an' enchanter as one who calculates the
times and hours, and other rabbis state that " an
enchanter is he who grows ill when his bread drops from
his mouth, or if he drops the stick that supports him from
his hand, or if his son calls after him, or a crow caws in
his hearing, or a deer crosses his path, or he sees a
serpent at his right hand, or a fox on his left." The
Arabs believe that magic will not work while he that
employs it is asleep. Besides it is possible to over-reach
Satan himself, and many Arabic tales exist in which men of
wisdom and cunning have succeeded in accomplishing this. 'Iblis
once sent his son to an assembly of honourable people with
a flint stone, and told him to have the flint stone woven.
He came in and said, " My father sends his peace, and
wishes to have this flint stone woven." A man with a
goat-beard said, " Tell your father to have it spun, and
then we will weave it." The son went back, and the Devil
was very angry, and told his son never to put forth any
suggestion when a goat-bearded man was present, " for he
is more devilish than we." Curiously enough, Rabbi Joshua
ben Hananiah makes a similar request in a contest against
the wise men of Athens, who have required him to sew
together the fragments of a broken millstone. He asks in
reply for a few threads made of the fibre of the stone.
The good folk of Mosul, too, have ever prided themselves
on a ready wit against the Devil. Time was, as my servant
related to me, when Iblis came to Mosul and found a man
planting onions. They fell to talking, and in their
fellowship agreed to divide the produce of the garden.
Then, on a day when the onions were ready, the partners
went to their vegetable patch and the man said, " Master,
wilt thou take as thy half that which is above ground or
that which is below ? " Now the Devil saw the good green
shoots of the onions sprouting high, and so carried these
off as his share, leaving the gardener chuckling over his
bargain. But when wheat time came round, and the man was
sowing his glebe on a day, the Devil looked over the ditch
and complained that he had made nothing out of the
compact. " This time, quoth he, we will divide
differently, and thou shalt take the tops " ; and so it
fell out. They visited the tilth together and when the
corn was ripe, and the fellah reaped the field and took
away the ears, leaving the Devil stubbing up the .roots.
Presently, after he had been digging for a month, he began
to find out his error, and went to the man, . who was
cheerily threshing his portion. " This is a paltry
quibble," said Iblis, " thou hast cozened me this twice."
" Nay," said the former, " I gave thee thy desire; and
furthermore, thou didst not thresh out thine onion-tops,
as I am doing this." So it was a sanguine Devil that sent
away to beat the dry onion-stalks, but in jain; and he
left Mosul sullenly, stalking away in dudgeon, and
stopping once in a while to shake his hand against so
crafty a town. " Cursed be he, ye tricksters ! who can
outmatch devilry like yours ?"
" In modern times in the East," says Mr. Thompson, " from
Morocco to Mesopotamia, books of magic are by no means
rare, and manuscripts in Arabic, Hebrew, Gershuni, and
Syriac can frequently be bought, all dealing with some
form of magic or popular medicine. In Suakin in the Soudan
I was offered a printed book of astrology in Arabic
illustrated by the most grotesque and bizarre woodcuts of
the signs of the Zodiac, the blocks for which seem to have
done duty in other places. Such books existed in
manuscript in ancient days, as is vouched for by the story
of the Sibylline books or the passage in Acts xix., 19; '
Not a few of them that practised curious arts brought
their books together, and burned them in the sight of
all.' "
It is curious to find the charm for raising hatred
practically the same among the Semites as it is amongst
the peoples of Hungary and the Balkan States: that is
through the agency of the egg of a black hen. We find too,
many minor sorceries the same among the Semites as among
European races. To be invisible was another attainment
much sought after, and it was thought that if one wore a
ring of copper and iron engraved with certain magic signs
this result would be secured, or the heart of a black cat,
dried and steeped in honey. The article " Solomon " can be
referred to for several instances of potent enchantments.
Sympathetic magic is often resorted to by the Arabic witch
and wizard, just as it was amongst the ancient Hebrews and
Assyrians.
The great repertory of Semitic occultism is of course the
Kabala, to which the reader is referred for later Hebrew
mystical doctrine.
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