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    A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult
    A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult
    A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult
    Ebook856 pages5 hours

    A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult

    By DK and Suzannah Lipscomb

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    See the history of witchcraft, magic and superstition come to life with this spectacular supernatural book!

    From alchemy and modern Wicca to paganism and shamanism, this enchanting book takes you on a mystical journey that will leave you spellbound. This is the perfect introduction to magic and the occult!

    This reference book about magic is packed with:

    - Informative, engaging and accessible text and lavish illustrations
    - Special features on aspects of magic, such as oracle bones of ancient China, the Knights Templar and magic at the movies, and "plants and potions" like mandrake and belladonna examine topics in great detail
    - Quick-fact panels that explore magic origins, key figures, key deities, use in spells, structures of religions and more

    This indispensable witchcraft book explores the common human fascination with spells, superstition and the supernatural. It provides you with a balanced and unbiased account of everything from Japanese folklore and Indian witchcraft to the differences between black and white magic and dispelling myths such as those surrounding the voodoo doll and Ouija.

    Expect the unexpected with A History Of Magic, Witchcraft and the Occult. It will open your eyes to other worlds. Discover forms of divination from astrology and palmistry to the Tarot and runestones. Explore the presence of witchcraft in literature from Shakespeare's Macbeth to the Harry Potter series, and the ways in which magic has interacted with religion.

    Whether you're a believer or a skeptic, this richly illustrated history book provides a fresh approach to the extensive and complex story of witchcraft, magic and the occult.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDK
    Release dateAug 18, 2020
    ISBN9780744033427

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    Reviews for A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult

    3.5/5

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    • 4/5
      Pros: lots of information easily digested, plentiful photographs, varied topics

      Cons: I feel like there was more magic from the African continent that deserved mention

      The book has 5 sections, each broken down into numerous subchapters going into more detail. The sections are: Ancient roots (prehistory to 400 CE), Curse or Cure (400-1500), Scholars and Sabbats (1500-1700), Secrecy and Ceremony (1700-1900), and Modern Magic (1900 onward). There is also a glossary at the back of the book. I was impressed by the number of subsections there were and how thorough the coverage is both in terms of history and geography.

      Most topics got a 2 page spread, with a few getting 4 pages. Occasionally side information would get its own spread, like images of fetishes or amulets from different cultures or the meanings of rune stones and how to use them for divination.

      I would have liked to learn more about indigenous African beliefs. The authors did a good job of trying to differentiate between magical practices, superstition, and religions still being practiced (which only showed up as they intersected with magical practices, like the Christian persecution of witches). I was impressed by the sheer breadth of information covered. Much of it I was familiar with, but there were sections, like Finnish native beliefs that I had never heard about.

      There are a lot of excellent photographs and good use is made of box text diving into specific practices and practitioners that needed a bit more coverage.

      I didn’t expect the modern sections to interest me as much as the ancient and medieval sections, but it was fascinating to see some practices return and others morph over time.

      If you’re looking for a broad overview of magical practices, this is an excellent book.
    • 4/5
      Amazingly illustrated, as all good D.K. books are. Standard, informative, but not deep, exposition and explanation in the text. A sweeping, illustrated view of the history of magic. Magic is a vision-oriented discipline, so any good history of it must be illustrated. Good if you can find it cheap.

    Book preview

    A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult - DK

    DKDK

    A HISTORY OF

    MAGIC

    WITCHCRAFT

    & THE OCCULT

    Foreword by Suzannah Lipscomb

    CONTENTS

    How to use this eBook

    ANCIENT ROOTS

    Prehistory to 400 CE

    Introduction

    The birth of ritual

    prehistoric magic

    Magic all around

    Mesopotamian magic

    A universal force

    Egyptian magic

    Spells for the afterlife

    Miracles and forbidden magic

    ancient Hebrew magic

    Power of the magi

    ancient Persian magic

    Enlisting the gods

    ancient Greek magic

    Interpreting divine will

    divination in ancient Greece

    Greek magic and myth

    State power, science, and superstition

    Roman magic

    Shrouded in secrecy

    mystery cults

    Healing plants

    Elixirs of life and death

    ancient Chinese magic

    Ensuring cosmic harmony

    Chinese divination

    Ministry of magic

    ancient Japanese magic

    Lore of the pantheon

    ancient Hindu magic

    The cosmic cycle

    Mayan magic

    CURSE OR CURE

    400–1500

    Introduction

    The wand-carriers

    Norse magic

    The runes

    Drumming and trance

    Finnish shamanism

    Tales of the druids

    Celtic myth and magic

    Christianity and the occult

    medieval Byzantine magic

    The divine and the wondrous

    magic and early Islam

    Power of the planets

    Arabic astrology and astral magic

    Protective objects

    I create as i speak

    Jewish magic and mysticism

    Angelic alphabets

    the spread of charaktêres

    European folk magic

    the common magical tradition

    Sympathy, saints, herbs, and humors

    magic and medicine

    The mandrake legend

    Divine power and evil spirits

    magic and medieval Christianity

    crystals AND GEMS

    Words of power

    magical handbooks

    Wizards, kings, and dragons

    Summoning demons and the dead

    medieval necromancy

    A pact with the devil

    witchcraft under scrutiny

    The fall of the templars

    SCHOLARS AND SABBATS

    1500–1700

    Introduction

    Cunning folk

    popular practices

    Magic or illusion?

    The smoking mirror

    Aztec sorcery

    Philosophical magic

    Hermeticism, divinity, and the universe

    Secrets of the divine

    the Kabbalah tradition

    The high arts of ritual

    ceremonial magic

    Magic and early science

    natural and occult philosophy

    Fantasy or science?

    The golden age of alchemy

    Alchemy in art

    Secrets of the rose and cross

    Rosicrucianism

    Looking to the stars

    Western astrology

    Divination tools

    The power of prediction

    almanacs and calendars

    The key to all knowledge

    Misunderstanding the local signs

    colonial encounters

    Sorcery on the stage

    magic in Renaissance theater

    Shakespeare’s fairy mischief

    Demons and the birth of the modern witch

    demonology in Renaissance Europe

    Gruesome penalties

    witch trials

    Poppets and fetishes

    Delusions and trickery

    debunking witchcraft

    Supernatural helpers

    witches’ familiars

    The salem witch trials

    SECRECY AND CEREMONY

    1700–1900

    Introduction

    THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON

    Freemasonry and mysticism

    SCIENCE OR SPELLS?

    folk magic in Europe

    FAIRY TALES

    BURIED CHARMS AND BORROWED SIGNS

    folk magic in North America

    EVERYTHING IS SPIRIT

    Voodoo and Hoodoo

    HARMFUL PLANTS

    HARNESSING THE LIFE FORCE

    mesmerism and hypnosis

    READING THE CARDS

    the tarot

    THE MAJOR ARCANA

    ARTISTIC EXPRESSION

    Romantics and renegades

    GOTHIC MAGIC

    SPEAKING WITH THE DEAD

    spiritualism

    CHANNELING THE SPIRITS

    mediums and séances

    OUIJA BOARDS

    READING THE LINES

    palmistry

    CODIFYING REINCARNATION

    the birth of spiritism

    HOCUS POCUS

    early stage magic

    DIVINE WISDOM

    theosophy

    THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS

    THE HERMETIC ORDER OF THE GOLDEN DAWN

    occult science, mystery, and ritual magic

    SYMBOLISM AND MYSTICISM

    magic in turn-of-the-century France

    MODERN MAGIC

    1900 onward

    Introduction

    MAGICK OF THE BEAST

    Crowley and the Thelemic religion

    MAN IS ONE WITH GOD

    the German occult revival

    RUNES FOR DIVINATION

    SPIRITUAL OCCULTISTS

    early 20th-century magical societies

    CONJURING TRICKS

    magic takes center stage

    BEYOND SUPERSTITION

    the colonial anthropologist

    MAGIC AND THE FANTASY NOVEL

    WICCA AND WITCHCRAFT

    witches in the modern era

    WICCAN TOOLS

    THE ‘‘OLD RELIGION’’

    Stregheria

    DRAWN FROM THE PAST

    Neopaganism

    MAGIC AND MUSIC

    HEALING POWERS

    the many faces of spirituality and shamanism

    VISIONS IN THE JUNGLE

    MIND, BODY, SPIRIT

    New Age practices

    WORSHIP OF THE SELF

    Satanism

    MODERN TALISMANS

    DANCING WITH THE DEAD

    THE TASTE FOR SPECTACLE

    magic as modern entertainment

    MAGIC WITH NO RULES

    chaos magic

    FROM HAG TO HERO

    witches in film and television

    THE ENERGY OF OTHERS

    witchcraft in the Internet age

    GLOSSARY

    CONTRIBUTORS

    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

    COPYRIGHT

    How to use this eBook

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    g Contents

    FOREWORD

    A little before Christmas 1611, a young girl led her blind, elderly grandmother to a mill-owner’s house to request payment for work recently done. Not wanting to pay up, the mill-owner yelled at the women, Get out of my ground, whores and witches, I will burn the one of you, and hang the other.

    The elder woman wanted revenge, and she knew how to get it. The speediest way, she later said, to take a man’s life by witchcraft is to make a picture of clay, like unto the shape of the person whom they mean to kill, prick it with a thorn or pin to cause pain, burn the clay figure, and thereupon by that means, the body shall die.

    This woman who believed herself and was believed by others to be a witch was Elizabeth Southerns, also known as Old Demdike. She was 80 years old and one of 20 people arrested in the English Pendle Witch Trials of 1612. She died awaiting trial, but 10 accused with her were hanged for having bewitched others to death by devilish practice and hellish means, including Elizabeth’s granddaughter, Alison.

    Fear of witches and harmful magic, objects as intermediaries for the working of magic, and the use of magic by the powerless to gain agency are all recurring themes in this wonderful, global study of magical beliefs and practices. We move through time and space from ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, through Roman praecantrices (female seers), Zoroastrian magic, medieval Japanese alchemy, and Scandinavian wand-carriers, through to Voudon (Voodoo), Ouija boards, Father Christmas, Wicca, and much else besides.

    Such an all-encompassing survey teaches us that while the forms of magic—the spells, rituals, and powers—have varied, those turning to magic have fundamentally had similar concerns. They have wanted power over that which was naturally beyond their control: they have wanted to challenge the inexplicable and get a handle on the ambiguous and uncomfortable. The Inuit people of Greenland, we learn, for example, came to believe in spirit powers who controlled the bitter, frozen wastelands in which they lived. Magic promises to help with daily tasks that easily go wrong, control weather that destroys crops, and bring solace to the infertile or the sick. This means that there has always been a role for those who believe they can mediate with spirits, ward off evil, and stand on the threshold between the seen world of humans and the unseen realms of the spiritual. This is why magic has preoccupied people for centuries, and continues to do so.

    I am especially struck by the vast number of ways in which humans have always tried to grapple with something over which we have zero control: that we live in linear time and do not know the future. It’s not just tea leaves and palmistry: it’s libanomancy (divination by looking at the patterns of a flame from a lamp), ornithomancy (observing the flight of birds), and even, my favorite, chremetismomancy (interpreting horses’ neighs).

    Often these forms of divination, like most magic, have been forbidden. Although the line between magic and miracle is a fine one, and where it falls largely depends on the beholder, magic has often been considered transgressive. And although magic has frequently been incorporated into dominant religions, it has, in turn, subverted orthodoxies and challenged established power structures.

    Nowhere is this clearer than in beliefs about witchcraft. Those accusing others of witchcraft were themselves seeking supernatural explanations for misfortune. The great European witch craze of the 16th and 17th centuries, in which nearly 50,000 people were executed, rested also on the ideas that evil power came from the devil and—as women were thought to be weaker and more susceptible to diabolic temptation—that most witches were female, using their magical powers to manipulate men.

    Magic is a topic around which misinformation swirls, like mists around a witch’s cauldron. This spellbinding book will dispel the fog, lift the enchantment, and vividly illuminate this perennially fascinating subject.

    dkdk

    g Contents

    dk

    ANCIENT ROOTS

    PREHISTORY

    TO 400 CE

    INTRODUCTION

    THE BIRTH OF RITUAL

    MAGIC ALL AROUND

    A UNIVERSAL FORCE

    SPELLS FOR THE AFTERLIFE

    MIRACLES AND FORBIDDEN MAGIC

    POWER OF THE MAGI

    ENLISTING THE GODS

    INTERPRETING DIVINE WILL

    GREEK MAGIC AND MYTH

    STATE POWER, SCIENCE, AND SUPERSTITION

    SHROUDED IN SECRECY

    HEALING PLANTS

    ELIXIRS OF LIFE AND DEATH

    ENSURING COSMIC HARMONY

    MINISTRY OF MAGIC

    LORE OF THE PANTHEON

    THE COSMIC CYCLE

    g ANCIENT ROOTS g Contents

    Introduction

    Magic is as old as humankind. As soon as early people became aware of their environment, they believed it to be filled with spirits whose aid they invoked to control it, either directly through shamans—who they thought could travel into the spirit world—or through art. It is thought that early people modeled figurines and painted animals on cave walls in the belief that doing so would give them magical power over their world.

    As societies became more advanced, they brought hierarchy and order to spiritual life. From around 4000 BCE, gods paralleled the rulers, priests, and nobility who held sway over Sumerian city-states or the ancient Egyptian kingdom. Far more is known about these more official religions than ever can be about their Neolithic antecedents because of the invention of writing. There is also more detail about magic, both good and bad. For example, an ancient Babylonian who broke the legs of a clay figurine to prevent a ghost wandering or a witch who tricked the god Marduk into inflicting disease on an enemy were intentionally harmful. Figurines buried beneath thresholds to prevent evil spirits entering, however, merely acknowledged and acted on the belief in evil forces in the spirit world that needed to be appeased.

    Much of the paraphernalia of later magic appears surprisingly early. Ancient Babylonians and Egyptians wore protective amulets and created books of spells. In Egypt, spells were even inscribed on the walls of tombs to give the soul magical protection on its hazardous journey into the afterlife.

    Words, both spoken and written, have long been seen as magical, too, and ancient Greeks and Romans produced curse tablets on which the expression of a dark desire, accompanied by the prescribed formulas, was thought to bring about its fulfillment.

    dk

    Mesopotamian dog figure, Ancient Greek panel of animal sacrifice, Roman mosaic of Odysseus

    Magicians soon developed their own techniques and philosophies. Sympathetic magic—the idea that curative substances should resemble the ailment being magically treated (so, a yellow potion might cure jaundice)—was known to ancient Egyptians. The Greeks developed the concept of binding, that a magician could take physical or spiritual control of another person or object, even of a body as massive as the moon, through the proper rituals. As literary sources become more plentiful, there are even names for individual sorcerers, such as Circe, who in Homer’s Odyssey enchanted Odysseus’s companions and turned them into pigs, or Erichtho, the witch whom Roman poet Lucan recounts raised a corpse from the dead by pouring the spittle of a rabid dog upon it.

    While many cultures produced specific, ordered rules for magic—few quite as many as Japan, which even had a ministry of magic—others retained a looser sense of the infinity of spiritual power. For the Maya, the observation of the cosmos and an awareness of vast cycles of time, the inhalation of psychotropic smoke to enter the spirit world, and the belief in spirit animals that accompanied powerful magicians echoed the earliest Neolithic magical beliefs. In the ancient world, chaos and death were never very far away and the desire to stave these off, if only for a short period, meant that magic was ever-present.

    "Magic, by holding people’s emotions in a triple bond …

    holds sway over a great part of humanity."

    PLINY, NATURALIS HISTORIA, ON BELIEF IN MAGIC’S MEDICAL, RELIGIOUS, AND ASTROLOGICAL POWER, 1ST CENTURY CE

    dk

    Pompeii fresco, Ancient Chinese energy map, Mayan codex

    g ANCIENT ROOTS g Contents

    THE BIRTH OF RITUAL

    prehistoric magic

    As early as 95,000 years ago Neanderthals (a hominin species related to modern humans) carefully buried a small child in a cave in Iraq with a reverence that suggests belief in an afterlife. The leaving of pebbles that look anthropomorphic (with human characteristics) in caves, and the building, around 2500 BCE, of stone circles—such as Stonehenge and Carnac—that were aligned to the sun’s rising or setting at certain times of year, point to an increasingly sophisticated and religious world view. With religion came magic.

    dk

    t Carnac stones

    Stretching out for more than a mile in Brittany, northwest France, are more than 3,000 stones, erected around 6,000 years ago, which are thought to have had some religious significance. Many of them are aligned in such straight rows that medieval local people believed they were a Roman army magically turned to stone.

    Prehistoric magic and early religion

    Early people learned to control the environment by inventing tools and using fire. These skills gave them limited power but at the same time made them aware of just how vast the forces were that were out of humankind’s control. To understand such mysteries as the sun’s rising and setting, birth and death, and the daily struggle to hunt for food for survival, our earliest ancestors conceived of spirit forces that they could invoke to gain an advantage. A belief in supernatural forces and a human desire to use them to gain some sway over the physical world has been a feature of societies ever since.

    Power and survival

    Hunting was essential for the survival of early human communities. Societies that have relied on tracking and killing animals into modern times, such as the Inuit of Arctic Canada, view hunting as a sacred act as it takes the life of another being that they believe possesses a soul. Stone Age peoples may have thought similarly. From around 17,000 years ago they adorned barely accessible caves, such as Lascaux in France, with paintings of people hunting wild animals including stags, horses, bison, cattle, and bears. These paintings may have been connected with rituals to make hunting expeditions more successful or have been intended to appease the animals’ spirits.

    dk

    t The Jericho skull

    This skull from around 7500 BCE was found in Jericho in the Jordan valley. It was partially covered in plaster and the eye sockets filled with shells to recreate the deceased’s features, possibly as part of an ancestor cult.

    "Mourning the dead was one of the shared

    rituals that helped bind the society together."

    BRITISH MUSEUM, ON THE JERICHO SKULL

    dk

    t Animal rites

    The cave paintings at Lascaux in southwestern France date from around 15,000 BCE. Nearly 900 animals were depicted in all, most likely as part of a magic hunting ritual.

    "It is all from Wakan-Tanka [the buffalo] that

    the Holy Man has wisdom and the power to heal."

    CHIEF FLAT-IRON OF THE OGLALA SIOUX IN NATALIE CURTIS’ THE INDIANS’ BOOK, 1907

    dk

    tRiver deity protecting fishermen

    This is one of a series of more than 50 monumental sandstone heads set up in front of the hearths of a Neolithic fishing village called Lepenski Vir beside the Danube in Serbia. The heads may represent guardian river deities.

    Figures of fecundity

    Fertility, too, preoccupied early peoples, as without new life their tribe would die. Many figurines of women with exaggerated hips and breasts have been found in caves. The physical characteristics of these figures are thought to suggest that people were calling on a mother goddess to bless them with children. Some of the statuettes were portable (perhaps to be held in the hand), such as the Venus figurines—ancient European sculptures believed to date from the Paleolithic era. One feature common to the Venus figures is the lack of facial detail, perhaps to give them universal appeal rather than resemblance to a specific individual.

    Magic of the dead

    Perhaps more potent than hunting, fertility, or the earth’s mysteries was the fear of death. Formal burials have been found, dating from as early as 60,000 BCE, containing bones scattered with red ocher (suggestive of blood). Some burials also included flowers or necklaces to accompany the deceased into the next life. At Kebara Cave in Israel, Neanderthals buried several skeletons and skull bones, probably as a post-mortem rite.

    Early peoples, too, seem to have had a fear of dead spirits. At Gough’s Cave in Somerset, incisions on bones that are around 15,000 years old indicate that they engaged in ritual cannibalism. The aim of this may have been to acquire the powers of the dead or to prevent their spirits from inflicting damage on the living.

    Animism and totems

    Prehistoric religion is thought to have been animistic—imbuing the natural world, including the landscape and the animals that inhabited it, with magical or supernatural powers. Naturally distinctive geographical features, for example, a series of rock formations at Nyero in Uganda (possibly dating as far back as 12,000 years), became shrines. They were adorned with geometric paintings and visited by early peoples to make offerings to the spirits believed to be there. Animal-shaped carvings, often of human-animal hybrids, such as the 40,000-year-old Lion Man from a cave in southern Germany, were venerated, too. They were possibly a totem—a spirit animal with whom the tribe had a particular magical relationship.

    Spirit world

    Maintaining good relations with the many spirits who inhabited the world was vital for early peoples. Ritual specialists—often referred to as shamans—emerged to communicate with the spirits and try to influence them. Shamans could seemingly transport themselves to the realms of the spirits through trances brought on by chanting, the rhythmic banging of drums, or by smoking or ingesting hallucinogenic herbs or other psychotropic substances.

    A headdress made of stag antlers found in the 11,000-year-old site of Star Carr in Yorkshire, may have been part of a shaman’s ritual attire, while rock art discovered in Siberia shows an X-ray view of the interior skeleton of the subject. This view is thought to represent the suspended state between life and death that allowed the shaman to travel into the spirit world. Such beliefs persisted among indigenous peoples in Siberia into modern times. The earliest beliefs in magic may date back 100,000 years, but many have survived, in some form, until very recently.

    dk

    t Lascaux shaman

    This cave painting shows a bison looming over a prostrate man next to a bird. One interpretation is that the figure depicted is a shaman and the bird is his spirit animal, traveling with him to the mystical realm while his body lies immobile in the physical one.

    IN PRACTICE

    Solidified sun

    alt image

    This fish-horse hybrid amber pendant comes from 5th-century BCE Italy.

    Amber, the fossilized resin of prehistoric pine trees, was treasured even in Neolithic times, and the ancient Greeks believed that it was the solidified rays of the sun. With its distinctive color and translucency, it became highly prized. It is electrostatic (it gives off sparks when rubbed), which also gave it a reputation for warding off danger, and it came to be regarded as a healing stone. Amber is found mainly along the shores of the Baltic Sea, but despite its comparative rarity necklaces and pendants made from it are a common archaeological find.

    g ANCIENT ROOTS g Contents

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    t Royal hunt

    The 7th-century BCE Assyrian king Ashurbanipal is shown hunting lions in this frieze. It was an act with a wider symbolic meaning: the king was protecting his subjects as their re’u (shepherd) and also extending his dominion over the desert and the king of beasts.

    MAGIC ALL AROUND

    Mesopotamian magic

    The peoples of ancient Mesopotamia—the land within the Tigris-Euphrates river system, now mainly Iraq—lived in a world of magical practice. Sumerians, Assyrians, and Babylonians all sought help from exorcists and omen-interpreters to gain protection from malign supernatural entities and discover the future. From the time of the Sumerians, who founded the first cities around 4000 BCE, to that of the Babylonians over 3,000 years later, Mesopotamia was a land in which magic was part of everyday life.

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    t Maqlu (burning) tablet

    Dating from around 700 BCE, this is the seventh of nine tablets. It contains chants for an ashipu (exorcist) to use to drive out witches who may have cursed a victim.

    Beneath the official pantheon, including the likes of Enlil, the Assyrian sky god, and Ea, the god of wisdom, was a layer of demons, such as Lamashtu, who threatened pregnant women, and Namtaru, the plague-demon, who needed to be mollified. Natural phenomena such as floods and lightning, or epidemic diseases, were not scientifically understood despite Mesopotamian advances, and so people at all levels of society preferred supernatural explanations. Disasters were believed to be caused by mamitu (curses) laid by witches, by victims committing offenses (sometimes unknowingly) against the gods, or through unintentionally ignoring divine signs. Kings guarded against these occurrences by consulting temple priests, in particular ashipu (exorcists), who performed magical rituals, and baru, who interpreted omens. Palace archives were stocked with collections of clay cuneiform tablets containing spells, incantations, and omens. Huge numbers have been recovered from the palace library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. Ordinary people also called on the services of ashipu to cast protective spells, and used amulets and enchanted figurines to dispel evil spirits.

    "I have called on twilight,

    midnight, and dawn, because

    a sorceress has bewitched me."

    MAQLU TABLET 1, c.1600 BCE

    Anti-witchcraft and omens

    Personal misfortune or sickness was often blamed on witches or demons. Witches were also thought to secretly put curses on people. Priests developed rituals to counteract malign influences and collected them in nine Maqlu tablets, first compiled around 1600 BCE. They were passed down through generations of ashipu for about the next thousand years. A collection of 100 incantations, across eight of the tablets, enabled the ashipu to identify and tame evil magic; the last tablet gives instructions for a ritual to banish a curse, which involved burning a figurine of the witch responsible. Exorcists often doubled as doctors, and another tablet contains a spell calling on Gula, the goddess of health, to drive out the ghost making a patient ill.

    Baru engaged in extispicy (divination by examining the entrails of sheep). They also observed celestial signs, such as eclipses, haloes around the sun (which portended the destruction of a city), irregularities in the movements of Venus, and cloud conditions. More unusual portents included the birth of deformed animals or conjoined twins, and even a red dog urinating on a man—a predictor of happiness.

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    t Incantation bowl

    A very late example of the Mesopotamian magical tradition, this bowl, from the 5–7th centuries CE, contains an incantation in Aramaic and depicts a demon in the center. Such bowls were often buried at the corners of rooms for protection.

    The Mesopotamians believed that objects had an animate quality and could act as the receptacles of enormous magical power, helping to ward off evil spirits and thwart their actions, or gain the favor of a god needed to drive them away.

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    tHuman-headed lion

    This lamassu guarded a palace door. The horned cap and wings indicate its divinity, and the belt its power. The sculptor gave the figure five legs so it looks as if it is standing firmly from the front but striding off from the side.

    Royal palaces were guarded by monumental statues of lamassu, winged creatures with the head of a man and the body of a bull or lion, which blocked and supported gateways, corridors, and the entrances to throne rooms. These thresholds were seen as particularly vulnerable to infiltration from the underworld by demons such as Rabisu, the crouching one. Poorer people placed figurines of gods or hybrid creatures such as fish-men with pointed hats and scaly skins under doorways or windows.

    Magical rituals were an important part of the defense against dark magic. The principle of substitution was used, so, for example, a young goat would be dressed in the clothes and sandals of a sick man and sacrificed to the goddess of death, in order that she would take the goat not the ill person. Similarly, ghost effigies were made to prevent the deceased from wandering or speaking—typically, a clay figure would be inscribed with the dead person’s name, its feet broken, and a dog’s tooth put in its mouth to gag it.

    Much evil magic was believed to have been carried out through witches tricking deities into helping them. Prayers to the gods, therefore, especially to Marduk, who was closely associated with magic, asked him to mediate with his powerful father Ea, who was the ultimate source of the ritual magic that ashipu used in their exorcisms.

    Amulets to ward off evil

    Wearing amulets was another part of protective magic, and such amulets often portrayed the spirit they were supposed to ward off. For instance, Pazuzu, the king of the wind demons, would be depicted as a creature with a bird’s chest and talons, holding a thunderbolt, and Lamashtu, who preyed on pregnant women, as a hybrid of a donkey, lion, and bird. Amulets could protect a traveler in hostile territory inhabited by demons, such as the desert, or keep disease away from a house during an epidemic. In the Mesopotamian world much was unpredictable, and magic tilted the balance just a little in people’s favor.

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    t Protective plaque

    This plaque depicts Pazuzu, king of the wind demons and lord of the southwest winds from the desert, which brought famine and locusts. It was crafted to provide protection from Pazuzu himself and to co-opt his aid in driving away another demon, Lamashtu.

    IN PRACTICE

    Dog figurines

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    This terra-cotta fragment of Gula’s dog is part of a larger sculpture or temple decoration.

    Gula, the healing goddess, was frequently depicted with a dog seated at her feet, and so clay or bronze dog figurines were used to invoke her aid. Buried at thresholds or other places vulnerable to the infiltration of magic, they acted as mystical guard dogs, keeping out disease or other misfortunes. They often had names carved on them, such as Loud of bark or Catcher of the enemy, to give them added potency. Gula was an underworld goddess, too, and the dog figurines may also have been intended to help guide the deceased into the

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