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I went to two lectures at Treadwells last week and they were both great. The first was ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
morbidfrog's on occult books in London Libraries based on her MA dissertation. I'd read her dissertation before and it was great to see the way she adapted it to a lecture. Her talk was very informative and practical. And reminded me that there are still many libraries in London that I need to visit. The theosophical library and the Welcome library being top of the list!
The second lecture I went to was by Irving Finkel who is a curator in the Department of the Ancient Near East at the British Museum. He specialises in Babylonian magical, medical and literary inscriptions. He was very informative and very funny. The talk was structured as a discussion between the different magical traditions of Mesopotamia and the rest of the world. (Christina had specified western traditions in her introduction, but I had to talk about China and another lady brought up Japan!) For me it was fascinating to see the similarities between the Mesopotamian beliefs and Chinese beliefs. (Or perhaps practices would be a better word to use than beliefs).
The written record for Mesopotamia continues for 3000 years of history. In reverse to China it started with practical measures and became increasingly more magical as time went on. Magic in Mesopotamia was primarily curative and preventative. It was based on disease and trying to heal the disease. (This reminded me a lot of early Celestial Master practices, but without the references to sin and confession). Mesopotamian magic did not contain spells such as how to turn yourself invisible or fly etc. Rather its focus was exorcistic. Demons were the crucial component and Finkel wanted to know if this was a literal belief or a metaphor. He believed that in ancient Mesopotamia it seemed to have been a literal belief.
In Mesopotamian belief there was a huge register of gods. Each area had a local god and these were put into a huge register by scribes, each given a position, wife and servants depending on their popularity. Finkel mentioned the problem with using this source was that the average Mesopotamian would not be aware that it existed but would only be aware of one or a couple of Gods and not the bigger picture as worked on by the scribes. The gods in this pantheon were very human and foible.
The demons were also similar to the gods. (However in writing the gods have an extra symbol to indicate the divine status and the demons have nothing, not a word indicating demonic status, just their name). Finkel gave examples of several different demons. There was the Creeper or the Jumper who waited by the city gates to get anyone who wandered out in the middle of the night. There was Mashta (sp) who affected pregnant women and babies. There are records of rituals which were to control her and to get rid of her. Finkel also talked of different methods for dealing with sickness. One kingly ritual had the King ejaculate into a woman who was then tied onto a horse and sent across the border to get rid of the King's illness.
Illness was seen as a result of possession and had to be exorcised and could be protected against through the use of amulets. The fact that so many rituals cost so much time and exposed people to danger seems to indicate that the belief in them was very strong. One ritual had the King leave his court and live in the forest for a period of weeks as it had been divined that the gods were going to attack the King on a certain date, so he would have to leave and have a stand-in take his place. Finkel reported how this happened quite regularly in some cases as often as every three months. It also brought up the point of how the court was run by astrologers. There were also examples of interesting developments in the study of these magical texts. A lot of these texts were sexual in nature. There was one example of a ritual that was to make a woman "speak" which was originally interpreted as have an orgasm, however later scholars decided that it simply meant to speak, as in to reveal the name of the person she was having an affair with. There was also a great cure for impotence which involved the recitation of the line, "when I enter the city gates all the virgins celebrate!"
It was also not just demons that were exorcised by the ritual specialists, (referred to as Rasputins by Finkel as they were all men with long beards) but also ghosts could be exorcised as well. The ghosts exhibited many of the same characteristics and powers as the demons but had a more human origin.
One interesting question arose about the nature of demons, were the descriptions the same from text to text? This brought up medieval grimoirs (sp) with eye of newt etc. Finkel said how in ancient times these words were just code names for different herbs and not to be taken literally as they were in later times.
In the texts there were references to the different demons a ritual was supposed to keep out, these ended with the phrase "any other evil" which ended up becoming the name of a demon in its own right. It ended up having its own picture and descriptions. Finkel said this was like the idea of a created elemental in modern magic.
It was interesting to hear that there was no difference in magical practice between Summerian and Babylonian times. All in all it was very enjoyable and I learned a lot.
morbidfrog's on occult books in London Libraries based on her MA dissertation. I'd read her dissertation before and it was great to see the way she adapted it to a lecture. Her talk was very informative and practical. And reminded me that there are still many libraries in London that I need to visit. The theosophical library and the Welcome library being top of the list!The second lecture I went to was by Irving Finkel who is a curator in the Department of the Ancient Near East at the British Museum. He specialises in Babylonian magical, medical and literary inscriptions. He was very informative and very funny. The talk was structured as a discussion between the different magical traditions of Mesopotamia and the rest of the world. (Christina had specified western traditions in her introduction, but I had to talk about China and another lady brought up Japan!) For me it was fascinating to see the similarities between the Mesopotamian beliefs and Chinese beliefs. (Or perhaps practices would be a better word to use than beliefs).
The written record for Mesopotamia continues for 3000 years of history. In reverse to China it started with practical measures and became increasingly more magical as time went on. Magic in Mesopotamia was primarily curative and preventative. It was based on disease and trying to heal the disease. (This reminded me a lot of early Celestial Master practices, but without the references to sin and confession). Mesopotamian magic did not contain spells such as how to turn yourself invisible or fly etc. Rather its focus was exorcistic. Demons were the crucial component and Finkel wanted to know if this was a literal belief or a metaphor. He believed that in ancient Mesopotamia it seemed to have been a literal belief.
In Mesopotamian belief there was a huge register of gods. Each area had a local god and these were put into a huge register by scribes, each given a position, wife and servants depending on their popularity. Finkel mentioned the problem with using this source was that the average Mesopotamian would not be aware that it existed but would only be aware of one or a couple of Gods and not the bigger picture as worked on by the scribes. The gods in this pantheon were very human and foible.
The demons were also similar to the gods. (However in writing the gods have an extra symbol to indicate the divine status and the demons have nothing, not a word indicating demonic status, just their name). Finkel gave examples of several different demons. There was the Creeper or the Jumper who waited by the city gates to get anyone who wandered out in the middle of the night. There was Mashta (sp) who affected pregnant women and babies. There are records of rituals which were to control her and to get rid of her. Finkel also talked of different methods for dealing with sickness. One kingly ritual had the King ejaculate into a woman who was then tied onto a horse and sent across the border to get rid of the King's illness.
Illness was seen as a result of possession and had to be exorcised and could be protected against through the use of amulets. The fact that so many rituals cost so much time and exposed people to danger seems to indicate that the belief in them was very strong. One ritual had the King leave his court and live in the forest for a period of weeks as it had been divined that the gods were going to attack the King on a certain date, so he would have to leave and have a stand-in take his place. Finkel reported how this happened quite regularly in some cases as often as every three months. It also brought up the point of how the court was run by astrologers. There were also examples of interesting developments in the study of these magical texts. A lot of these texts were sexual in nature. There was one example of a ritual that was to make a woman "speak" which was originally interpreted as have an orgasm, however later scholars decided that it simply meant to speak, as in to reveal the name of the person she was having an affair with. There was also a great cure for impotence which involved the recitation of the line, "when I enter the city gates all the virgins celebrate!"
It was also not just demons that were exorcised by the ritual specialists, (referred to as Rasputins by Finkel as they were all men with long beards) but also ghosts could be exorcised as well. The ghosts exhibited many of the same characteristics and powers as the demons but had a more human origin.
One interesting question arose about the nature of demons, were the descriptions the same from text to text? This brought up medieval grimoirs (sp) with eye of newt etc. Finkel said how in ancient times these words were just code names for different herbs and not to be taken literally as they were in later times.
In the texts there were references to the different demons a ritual was supposed to keep out, these ended with the phrase "any other evil" which ended up becoming the name of a demon in its own right. It ended up having its own picture and descriptions. Finkel said this was like the idea of a created elemental in modern magic.
It was interesting to hear that there was no difference in magical practice between Summerian and Babylonian times. All in all it was very enjoyable and I learned a lot.