Possession and Exorcism in Ancient Israel - Judaism

there is perhaps no more fearful idea in the history of magic and religion than possession the very notion that our bodies could be inhabited by supernatural evil which twists our very being into a very caricature of itself is positively dread inducing despite the horror of this concept or perhaps because of it possession and exorcism remain perennially interesting topics in the history and study of religion perhaps this is because of the ubiquity of the phenomenon it seems to occur in the vast majority of the world's religious cultures indeed it's one of the most versatile religious concepts changing and morphing over time to express that culture's most deep fears and dreads even in our contemporary allegedly secular period the 1973 film the exorcist is still considered one of the most terrifying films ever produced indeed a large part of our cultural conception of possession and exorcism is still primarily framed by this film i've even made the pilgrimage i suppose in a macabre way to the so-called exorcist steps in georgetown just to sort of breathe it all in i suspect that the concept of exorcism and possession will long remain as alluring as they are genuinely terrifying while possession and exorcism are most commonly depicted in a christian context most likely a catholic one you can thank the exorcist for that there's a long history of the concept in judaism as well in this two-part episode of esoterica we're going to explore the development and history of the concepts of possession and exorcism as they occur in the history of judaism from its origins in the ancient near east to the contemporary period where cases of debit possession and their exorcism can actually be viewed on youtube in this first episode we're going to trace the history of possession and exorcism in judaism from its very earliest time period all the way to the first centuries of the common era in the next episode we'll trace the development of these concepts in the rise of rabbinic judaism through the great law and demonic possessions that seems to occur in the early middle ages through the emergence of the kabbalah which produced in the 16th century the most terrifying form of possession known in judaism the horrifying case of the dybbic so i hope you'll join me as we explore the concept of possession and exorcism as they develop in the history of judaism i'm dr justin sledge and welcome to esoterica where we explore the arcane side of history philosophy and religion [Music] despite its foundational character it's somewhat curious to note that the concept of possession and exorcism is basically absent in the hebrew bible indeed even the presence of malevolent supernatural entities is hardly present in this strata of israelite literature though some obscure references do appear here and there and don't worry i'll be doing a separate video on the future on the presence and absence of demons and demonic entities in this very earliest strata of israelite literature so stay tuned for that indeed at this point not even satan is truly evil they seem to have a kind of official position in the divine court you'll notice that when they're mentioned they're always referred to as hasatan ha being the word the in hebrew the satan it's a title not a name in that title the adversary probably means something like prosecuting attorney it seems as if the satan is a kind of prosecuting attorney in the divine court that indicts and prosecutes cases before the divine assembly now of course no one likes to be prosecuted especially before a divine court but simply because you're prosecuted doesn't mean that the prosecutor is in fact evil and if one reads the hebrew bible closely it seems like the satan and god are positively chummy at times further there also seemed to be very little mention of disembodied spirits or non-physical entities at this strata of the hebrew bible now there are oblique and obscure references to these kinds of beings but again they're just that they're oblique and obscure the general tenor of the hebrew bible doesn't have much to do with spiritual or non-physical beings and of course that represents a problem for any theory of possession and exorcism if you don't have beings that can do the possessions while you don't need much in the way of exorcisms indeed there are only two cases that come to mind that seem somewhat like the concept of possession in the hebrew bible the first is a quote evil spirit from the lord the ruach rama hashem which seems to be sent from god to actually afflict the mind and spirit of saul you'll remember that king saul seems to be suffering from some kind of mental health episode toward the end of his reign and only the playing of the harp by david seems to calm him down although there are some circumstances where even that doesn't seem to work and saul flies into violent fits and attacks david for some reason and the other is the so-called lying spirit or the spirit of deception the ruach shecker which seems to volunteer before the divine council to be sent into the mouths of the various prophets in order to send king ahab to his doom this whole drama plays out i think at the end of first kings around chapter 22 where god actually wants to have king ahab killed and sends a lying prophet into the mouths of the various prophets in order to give him a false prophecy such that he will go to battle fight and die this is sort of like a counter intelligence shabbat program from the heavens it's very odd however that god would in fact use deception in order to get a king killed there's something kind of cia about all this regardless of the spiritual cloak and dagger business and all this you'll notice what's interesting about both these stories in both of these accounts the evil spirit is actually sent by god it doesn't seem to have a kind of independent existence all its own what we don't seem to see here is a kind of independent or semi-independent demonic world where spiritual entities are targeting human beings and possessing them rather they're being sent by the israelite god to accomplish a very specific goal in the overall agenda of that god this likely represents the theological concerns of the writers of these texts in these texts one simply has to imagine that god has complete executive power over how things go in the world there's simply very little theological room for an independent demonic executive power here this writer is very strongly on the monotheistic scale of things and we see that exact kind of theological idea echoed in so-called third isaiah where the israelite god declares anitov varah ani'or the hoshech i am the light i am the dark i am the good and i am the evil this is an idea of radical monotheism even evil in this strata of israelite theology is attributed directly to the israelite god there's simply no notion of independent evil out there lurking in the darkness we can perhaps learn a bit more about the israelite concept of possession and exorcism by looking at their two greatest nearby neighbors that would be the egyptians and the cultures of ancient mesopotamia while possession and exorcism did occur in ancient egypt it doesn't seem to play a major role in either cultic or medical life in this way israelite culture seems to be a bit more like the egyptian rather than the mesopotamian cultures while virtually all ancient near eastern peoples took illness as having a basically supernatural origin the egyptian practice was largely to get ahead of the curve of this evil supernatural power rather than typically see illness as a kind of possession which had to be exercised the egyptians often engage in what we would call execration magic that is to say warding magic to prevent the onset of sickness altogether indeed the majority of egyptian medical magic typically takes the form of execration spells rather than exorcism spells which is to say they typically try to ward off illness before it arrives rather than exercise it after it does indeed this practice is echoed in egyptian medical literature where we see that our preponderance of the medical technology there is rather naturalistic indeed the egyptians were the great innovators when it came to ancient surgery performing the first eye surgery ever known in history indeed the egyptians are responsible for the most comprehensive early medical manuals in all of human history these treaties cover a wide range of medical practices from trauma medicine to gynecology to ophthalmology there are sections analyzing what we would now call rheumatology and even specific treaties on children that is to say the egyptians pioneered the development of pediatrics even rival schools of medical theory and practice emerge in ancient egypt and about 12 or so major comprehensive systematic medical texts have emerged and survived from ancient egypt these are all well worth taking a look at if you ever have the chance to while naturalistic medicine certainly existed in ancient mesopotamia exorcism seems to have played a much larger role in their medical technology than it did in the ancient egyptian or ancient israelite contexts indeed the most detailed medical manuals of the neo-syrian period this is a period that we have some of the best documentation of the mesopotamian theory of medicine detail over 16 tablets in which exorcism is a large aspect of that medical technology indeed in these texts what we have is a combination of both medical and exorcistic technology as it was performed by cultic professionals called ashipu or these words can be translated something like incantation expert or exorcist doctor there's simply no good translation of these technical terms from their ancient context into our modern context now though while these documents do focus more on the supernatural etiology of disease and their cures these works are no less systematic in fact many of the diseases described by these texts are described for the first time in human writing luckily for us these 16 tablets describing the exorcistic practices of the neo-syrian period survive in relatively good condition and give us a great window onto the practices of these incantation experts so i'd like to summarize at least in a very brief way the exorcistic healing processes and rituals of the eshipu or the incantation experts as they're described in the 16 neo-assyrian tablets the basic task of the exorcistic ritual here was to transfer the demon or ghost away from the infected person or place such that it could be sort of peeled off or dusted away in a way that it could be otherwise dispatch from that person the idea here is to transfer it from one entity to another and then remove that entity the demon or the ghost into another place typically there's no sense that you can actually destroy the demon or the ghost you could simply either move them to a different location trap them or perhaps get them to go safely into the underworld the first step of the process involved ritual purification through immersion what's interesting about these immersions is they can be either immersions in water as we would typically think of purifying immersions in the ancient near eastern world or they can actually be immersions through rubbing with the use of precious stones woods or even special metals dedicated to the gods so here we have not just ritual immersion in water but a kind of rubbing ritual in which various kinds of stones and metals have a kind of supernatural power of purification this idea of stones powers and wood having correspondence or sympathetic magical powers will persist long into magical traditions even to this day the person or the space afflicted by the demon or ghost are also themselves purified though their purification is slightly different they tend to be rubbed with either grain or dough or bread or sometimes even with animals or animal pelts this is the beginning of the process in which the demon or the ghost is being transferred from their physical body into the grain or the dough in which that can be burned at a later time it seems that these purification rituals could be performed in either a sacred space such as a temple or in a secular space such as an infected home from here there were a wide range of exorcistic practices that could be applied depending on the circumstances these rituals would involve the cleaning and sweeping of the space of the infected along with a kind of ritual hunt for detritus this ritual cleaning would be followed by the sprinkling with water along with various libations to the gods this would last be followed up by the burning of various ungents and incenses and of course all this would be determined by various divinatory aspects known to the ritual practitioner as to exactly what kind of rituals were required at what time and in what way it's at this point that the actual exorcistic incantations seem to begin in earnest it seems that we have a kind of opening invocation followed by various techniques to provide magical protection for the ritual practitioner this would involve the use of plants or even the presence of a raven once the magical protections are in place the exorcist begins the process of shouting and threatening the demon or ghosts to leave these commands are typically accompanied with the ringing of bells with the burning of incense including the burning of sulfur we're going to see that the burning of sulfur is going to be a core component of exorcisms for centuries to come so watch for it as it develops later if the verbal threats fail to drive the demon or ghost from the infected person or space it's at that point that one could be actually physically scourged the place could be physically scourged in order to drive the demon out it's at this point that one may actually begin to negotiate with the demon or ghost in order to get them to leave for instance it's not uncommon to offer the dead a proper burial or proper funerary practices in order for them to leave the afflicted person it's also at this point that one may begin to threaten the demon with other demons this is famously done in which the demoness lamashtu a killer of infants can be threatened to leave by the image of hazuzu the famed demon of exorcistic lore in the ancient near east the use of using one demon to drive away another demon is actually not uncommon in ancient near eastern magic and we'll see jesus actually being accused of exactly that process and his exorcistic power in the new testament during this entire process the infected or possessed person is provided themselves various forms of magical protection this would involve being scrubbed with water being rubbed with various kinds of sacred woods this would also include magical symbols being drawn on the floor or on their bodies with flour and this would also include massages with milk and fat rubbed over their bodies finally if the exorcism were successful the demon or ghost is either transferred to a different entity or the ghost in this case would be banished to the underworld interestingly enough one of the creatures that the demons can be transferred into is a black goat this will be important when we get back to the ancient israelites in just a moment after the exorcism is completed there are further rituals which seek to protect from re-infection or repossession by the spirits these include various kinds of amulets of which many have actually survived it can be viewed in museums along with votive statues the most famous of these votive statues of course are the pazuzu statues which are there to frighten away the demon s lamash tube along with the scattering of various kinds of vegetable seeds it's also worth noting that the use of vegetable seeds is also seen in other forms of folklore as well we see in eastern european folklore the use of various kinds of seeds to distract vampires from pursuing you for whatever reason if you scatter a great deal of seeds on the ground then the vampire for whatever reason has to stop and pick them all up before they can bother you so you should keep some vegetable seeds with you especially this time of the year as you may have already noticed some of these mesopotamian exorcistic concepts actually do make their way into israelite religion although somewhat indirectly of course the most obvious is the idea of the azazel goat this is a ritual in which the high priest of ancient israel would actually transfer the sins of the israelite people on yom kippur into a goat and this goat would be dispatched into the wilderness there are some stories in which it's actually thrown down a mountain but the idea here of transferring sin or evil or infection to an animal and then killing that animal we find it of course an ancient mesopotamia but we see it also here being incorporated at some level into ancient israelite religious practice as well the other important concept that you may have noticed is the idea that places can be infected with demonic power as well this is very likely echoed in the ancient israelite conception of which is sometimes translated incorrectly as leprosy this is not hansen's disease it's irat is some kind of supernatural illness sent directly from god and importantly it can inflict people famously inflicted moses's sister miriam but it can also inflict places and there are very complicated rituals in which the iraq can be diagnosed by priests and can be dispatched by them and by them alone so in both of these cases both the case of the azazel goat and in the concept of this supernatural illness which can inflict both people and places we have something like ancient near eastern possession and exorcism rituals being imported into israelite religion so we can see at this point the basic metaphysical structures for possession and exorcism are actually already at work in the hebrew bible we have evil spirits coming from god and possessing people to make them do things but we also have the exorcistic technology being imported from ancient mesopotamian cultures in the form of the azazel goat and the ra illness it's from the combination of ideas like these that will eventually produce a concept like possession and exorcism as we know it in both israelite religion and in turn in judaism the next major moment in this history is the babylonian exile which began in 586 bce and the rise of jewish apocalypticism as you can see on the screen apocalypticism is a enormously complex movement in religious history and requires its own video i'll be making an entire series i think on jewish apocalypticism in general so make sure to stay tuned for that but what concerns us in this episode is the apocalyptic mode's concern with the origins of evil specifically the origins of evil and the kinds of creatures that we would now call demons possibly under zoroastrian influence judaism began to import large amounts of angelic and demonic creatures into its religious mythology at this time in fact it's during this period that we get the first named angels michael and gabriel as they appear in the apocalyptic classic the book of daniel but also it's during this period that we get the first things that we might recognize as demons these are the so-called watchers as they're found in the famous book of enoch as you may know it's in the book of enoch that a renegade group of angels led by a certain shem haza are semyaza or shemhazai all of these various versions of his name just literally mean the one that sees the name well they decide to descend to earth well in order to have sex with human women now before you go making any earth girls or easy jokes one of the first women that these angels encounter actually tricks the leader of the angels semyaza there's a great moment where samyaza is trying to have sex with this woman and then rather immediately go over to having sex with him she demands that he teach her the divine name and simiaza does and as soon as he does teach her the divine name she is transformed instantly into a series of stars the pleiades and escapes from his clutches so what's interesting about this story is that the very first woman that these renegade angels encounter in fact outsmarts them at any rate there are two important things about this story to be found in the book of enoch one that the angels are primarily concerned and elicit sexual activity with women we're going to see the idea of possession and exorcism constantly use the idea of illicit sexual activity as a way of understanding what's going on between the specters that do the possessing and the people that are being possessed and the second is that these angels become somewhat demonic over time they're converted from angels into demons through a long theological process and it's these angels slash demons which are at the heart of evil to be found in the world these are the various angels that teach human beings about everything from how to make war to how to do cosmetics to how to do magic to do all kinds of things that the book of enoch typically considers to be evil of course none of this is possession strictly speaking but again it's part of the transition of the narrative from supernatural entities to an idea of possession where we have one the sexual element that's going to be very important and much of later possession exorcism stories but two the transition of supernatural creatures somewhat outside the power of the divine they act as independent entities and in so far as they're capable of acting as independent malevolent entities it's only then that they can set about the task of possessing people so again not straightforward possession but we're getting closer about a century after the composition of the book of enoch the linking of sexual desire in demons is fused in the book of tobit as you may know the book of tobit can be found in the christian apocrypha and it was the favorite topic of many renaissance painters in fact if you ever see a renaissance or medieval painting with angels walking around with a young man with a fish then you're almost certainly seeing an image from the book of tobit and it's that fish that is actually the most important part of this part of the story to summarize very briefly tobias and some of his angelic friends are out on a hike who has angel friends i want angel friends at any rate they're out on a hike and they find a fish and the angel tells them to gather up various parts of that fish because they have some kind of magical or supernatural powers now young tobias wants to marry the fair sarah but there's a problem there is a demon named ash madai we'll get back to him in a minute that guards sarah and any time anyone attempts to court her well he the demon kills them now it's worth noting here that the name of this demon is ashmadai or asmodius you may recognize ashmandai as not a hebrew name in fact it's an iranian zoroastrian name thus indicating that the demon being imported here from persian mythology or from zoroastrian mythology shows that ideas from other middle eastern cultures are now making their way for sure into judaism the demon in this text has a zoroastrian name well at any rate the young tobias does court the fair sarah and he uses the liver and the heart of this fish as a kind of ungender incense fumigation to drive the demon as far away as egypt and when the demon ashmodi or asmodius is driven all the way to egypt the angel raphael is actually waiting for him and binds him hand and foot in chains i should also mention by the way this is the first appearance of our friend rafael the angel in literature sometimes these first appearance things are kind of like comic books you're like did you see batman first appeared in detective comics number whatever so yeah at any rate raphael first appearance book of tobit look it up now again i know what you're thinking this isn't strictly speaking possession ash madai isn't in fact inhabiting the body of sarah in order to make her do all kinds of terrible things but we're on the road it still is the case the demon here is very carefully guarding sarah and there's some idea that he's guarding her for sexual reasons again he's always killing her suitors and we do have something like an exorcism ritual in which the guts of this fish are used as a kind of incense to drive him away as we've seen the use of incense or fumigation was already found way back in ancient egyptian and in ancient mesopotamian cultures as a mechanism to drive away evil spirits and of course the use of incense and fumigation will remain all the way to this day a way of purifying or driving away evil so it's important that we see that the structure of the basic exorcism possession cycle is already present in the book of tobit even if asmodius isn't physically or spiritually inhabiting the body of sarah indeed to my knowledge it's not until the turn of the common era that we begin to see classic exorcism cases in which a supernatural evil entity enters into the body of a person only to be driven out by a ritual expert and it's to those cases that we finally turn to now indeed if evidence is scant for possession and exorcism prior to the turn of the common era it is simply profuse in the first few centuries of the common era and we can see this phenomenon widely attested in the jewish context in the first few centuries of the common era specifically in the sectarian documents of the dead sea scrolls in the writings of the philosopher philo of alexandria and the exorcistic rituals performed by the famed jesus of nazareth and in the writings of the jewish historian josephus so i want to turn my attention to these four examples of possession and exorcism as they represent basically the entirety of the literature that survives from this period on the subject and that will get us all the way up to the rabbinic period starting in say around 200 of the common era and that is where we will start the next episode the earliest exorcistic texts that we seem to have from a jewish context at this time are found among the dead sea scrolls the dead sea scrolls as you may know represent the library and writings of a group of sectarians that called themselves the yachad but were primarily called by outsiders via scenes although exactly the connection between the so-called the scenes and the yacht that produced the scrolls as we have them is still a bit contentious the writers of the dead sea scrolls or the yakad seem to have their origins as a kind of protest movement against what they perceived of as the corruption to be found in the jerusalem temple their religious attitudes are further marked by kind of pretty extreme apocalyptism and dualism in this dualistic theology they see themselves as the sons of light and their opponents the sons of darkness are the sons of belial are demonic forces which control the world in their theology they alone are the actual representatives of goodness in the world and after a titanic apocalyptic battle with the sons of evil they alone will prove victorious their literature describes the community with strict initiation protocols a very ascetic lifestyle a unique solar calendar in the jewish world and the desire to live in a high degree of ritual purity separated from the vast majority of the world following the great revolt in the last half of the first century it seems that their community was destroyed and their scrolls simply remained in those caves only be discovered from time to time and primarily in the mid 20th century indeed about a thousand scrolls and tens of thousands of scroll fragments have been discovered to date but as you can surmise from this brief summary the world of the yachad the writers of the dead sea scrolls is a world positively filled with demonic power and it's this demonic power to which i want to turn to now the scrolls that interest us at least in this episode are a series of psalm-like texts which are described as quote songs to be sung over the stricken and these probably represent the earliest kinds of jewish incantation exorcistic texts in history the major of these scrolls is 4q444 and 4q5 10 through 11. i'll be putting up some texts from these exorcistic scrolls on the screen but you can also consult them in various other texts as well it seems that the exorcistic power of these texts is primarily in the form of frightening the demon which is afflicting the person by describing to the demon the awesome power of the israelite god indeed the repetition of the power of god over and over in exorcistic rituals is very common we'll see it from here in the dead sea scrolls all the way into the modern rituals that are found even in the catholic church you'll remember the famous scenes in the exorcist where the exorcist there and those rituals which are actually relatively accurate repeat over and over the power of god compels you the blood of the martyrs compel you this idea that the power of god actually forces the demon out of the body of the possessed person those kinds of ideas and that kind of repetition can be found here all the way back into the dead sea scrolls it's also worth noting that it's in these texts that we get a kind of early inventory of demons in fact lilith the famous demon to be found in the alphabet of ben sarach and of great feminist fame is actually mentioned here for the first time in any manuscript in recorded history lilith as you may know has a history being related to the demon s lamashtu that we mentioned earlier both of them are typically responsible for crib death in the ancient near eastern world it's also worth pointing out that some of these exorcistics psalms found in the dead sea scrolls also invoke the name of solomon as you may know solomon would go on to be known for his power over demonic forces including the ability to use those demonic forces in the construction of the temple itself so already in the early first centuries bce or the first century ce we have salman being depicted as a kind of exorcist using his vast power and knowledge in the effort to exercise and control demons this idea is going to become crucially important in the development of magic from the greek magical papyri all the way through the medieval grimoire tradition in which so-called salomonic magic is typically associated with the ability to control demons we can trace that idea back all the way to the exorcistic psalms found here in the dead sea scrolls while we do have these exorcistic scrolls and they do give us some insight into the theology and the practice of exorcism as it was done in the hinge of the first century of the common era what is actually missing are the actual rituals that they may have done to further the process of exorcism itself in other words what we don't know is how did these texts actually function into the practice of exorcism as a ritual were there a fumigations were there ungents did they use ritual baptism which we know was a core component of life there at qumran and the the answer is we don't know what we have here are the texts but we don't have anything like the rituals that would these texts would have focused into while we have the text or the incantations that would have been used very likely in exorcism rituals we don't have any sense of what would have been done in addition to the chanting perhaps of these texts but what we can likely conclude is that we've entered into the period of possession proper where supernatural malevolent evil beings are entering into the bodies of human beings and therefore need to be expelled it seems by the period of the dead sea scrolls that possession and exorcism have certainly entered into judaism as we would recognize them of course the most famous jewish exorcist in the history of the ancient world was none other than jesus of nazareth indeed had jesus not become the central figure in the development of christianity he likely would have been principally remembered as an exorcist or healer indeed the galilee was known for producing just these kinds of figures one can think of the rabbinical figures of ghanina bendosa the great miracle worker and healer found in the mishnah but also khoni the circle maker the famous jewish the urgist of the same time period so it's unsurprising that we would have jesus of nazareth the famed exorcist along with other rabbinical figures like khanina bendosa and khoni the circle maker all sort of figuring into a galilean story about the various kinds of miracle workers from that region the exorcisms that jesus performed are among his most prevalent miracles in fact there are at least nine recorded exorcisms to be found in the synoptic gospels although it's interesting to note that there are no exorcisms performed by jesus in the gospel of john i think this is sometimes referred to as one of the johannine emissions these strange aspects in which there are stories found in the synoptic gospels which aren't found at all in the gospel of john for whatever reason and there are lots of theories as to why this is but there can be no doubt that along with the healing miracles performed by jesus it was the exorcism miracles that seemed to attracted a large following among his earliest disciples the descriptions of the exorcisms performed by jesus sometimes are as brief as a few sentences and sometimes occupy long perique beasts to be found in every one of the synoptic gospels what's also interesting about tracking the exorcism stories in the new testament is that one can see them change and develop as the theology and the ideas about jesus himself change as the gospels are produced in the earlier stories we have a very meager story sometimes but through luke and matthew the stories become enormous this of course tracks from the development of jesus as a healer exorcist to his role as a kind of prophet to eventually the role of both messiah and divine figure the typical mode by which jesus exercises people is through the use of commands although it's often through the faith of the person in the ability of jesus to heal them that in fact effectuates the exorcism itself although i think the most famous exorcism story involving jesus is a so-called garrison demoniac found in fact in all three synoptic gospels here we have a story in which jesus travels to the transjordan this is the area just to the east of the jordan river and there he encounters a man living horribly among the tombs of a city of course the area of a tomb is doubly horrifying in the jewish imagination of this time tombs are places of incredible ritual uncleanliness but also in later rabbinic literature it is precisely in graveyards and tombs that demons seem to lurk most ferociously we're told further that this man is possessed by a demon or demons and that this demonic possession has given him unusual strength apparently the townspeople had tried to bind him with ropes and chains and he had subsequently broken them and now has upon just the sight of jesus the demons themselves seem to recognize his immense power and beg not to be tortured at this point jesus commands the demons to come out of this man and then demands to further know what their name is this idea of knowing what the name of the demon is in order to control it is a classic idea to be found all the way back in ancient egypt and this idea will be found all the way until ritual practice of the contemporary period upon that command the demon reveals its name in fact we find out that it's not just one demon it's in fact a host of demons and these demons revealed their name to be legion we'll come back to that in just a moment the demons then beg jesus not to simply cast them out but specifically to cast them out into something else in this case a herd of pigs which once jesus does cast them out into this unclean animal right this is very important the image of the pig of course would have been seen as a deeply unclean animal in the jewish imagination and casting out the unclean demon unto an unclean animal makes sense this also harkens back to the older mesopotamian idea that one can transfer the demon from an inflicted person over to a different animal back then it was a goat but in this story here we have them cast into pigs subsequently the herd of pigs now filled with these demon legion throw themselves off a cliff into some water and therefore die it's important to note that the local townspeople while impressed and somewhat terrified of jesus power to move these demons into these pigs are also equally terrified of jesus and basically request that he leave and go somewhere else while the possessed man who wants to join with jesus as jesus departs is actually told to go to the decapolis and simply tell people what has happened to him thus further spreading the message of jesus and the idea of jesus's enormous power over the forces of evil of course there's a great deal to unpack about this story this is probably one of the most widely known stories of jesus's power over evil in the new testament i think what stands out to me the most is that the name of the demon here is legion legion of course isn't a jewish name it's not to be found in aramaic or hebrew in fact as you probably know the legion is a unit of the roman army it's the basic unit of the roman army comprising roughly 5 000 to 8 000 soldiers and their auxiliaries and of course it's worth pointing out that judea at the time of jesus and certainly at the time of the writer mark is under brutal roman occupation they're literally at the cusp of a great revolt between jewish and roman forces so at some level it's hard not to miss the basically anti-colonial subtext of this story we have a man being possessed by the roman army which is then cast into unclean animals which are then thrown into the sea it's difficult not to imagine the story as functioning at basically two levels there's a spiritual level in which jesus the messiah has the ability to control demonic evil forces and thus destroy them but further the idea here is that the roman army as an occupying force is viewed by the writer of this text as a kind of evil possessing the land which can be exercised and thus thrown out and thrown into the sea of course there's no sea in the trans jordan i think the sea that the writer has in mind here is the mediterranean the idea here is casting the romans into the sea as if they were a demon possessing the land of judea to me this dual layer of the text represents the great creative genius of the writer and of early christianity we have jesus who has messianic powers over evil but also we have here a deep hope for redemption in which the evil roman army the demonic roman army will be exercised from the land of judea so we have a kind of dual apocalyptic messianic story operating here in the very famous story of the geracin demoniac of course just as early as there were literal accounts of exorcism and possession there were also more rationalizing trends in the jewish world as well this more rationalistic argument can be seen in the writings of someone like philo of alexandria the jewish philosopher of middle platonism as you probably know philo is most famous for attempting to reconcile his jewish religious beliefs with the larger greek philosophical ideas of his day producing a synthesis in which both ideas are married harmoniously his philosophical output is rather vast but i want to focus in specifically in his discussion on the relationship between jewish demon slash angels and the greek idea of the demones are spirits these demones are relatively neutral spirits in the greek imagination and see how he attempts to understand just how the greek damones and the jewish relationship of angels and demons relate specifically in terms of the process of possession and exorcism as you can see on the screen this is from philo's books on the giants we have a really fascinating attempt to understand just what angels demons and demonese mean in the context of a more psychologizing aspect found in philo's more middle platonic philosophy for him angels demons and damones are less supernatural creatures which exist in the external world as much as they are psychological facts about our own interiority in this case he's specifically talking about our own addiction to physical pleasure which he likens to a kind of possession of course this idea can be traced all the way back to plato between the two horses of desire and reason sort of being driven in some sense if we're lucky by the logical power of the rational aspect of our soul here we have the idea that demonic power or demonic influence is primarily our inability to control our own inner life this is sometimes even the way we refer to ourselves these days as having quote inner demons these inner demons for philo are aspects about our own psychology our own soul and the way that he would perhaps put it that we must conquer in order to live a life that's actually free and properly philosophical philosophy here is acting as a kind of exorcism which liberates us from the power of the demonic quote unquote over aspects of our otherwise logical souls this more psychological read of angels and demons strikes me as extraordinarily modern but it's interesting to note that where philo develops this idea is precisely in his book on the watchers and it's by combining the jewish mythology of the watchers found in the book of enoch with the platonic philosophy found in the ideas of people like plato where we get this unique synthesis of demons as psychological aspects of ourselves again this idea strikes me as incredibly modern one can even see in the works of someone like aleister crowley the idea that goethe demons are in some sense aspects of our own psychology that the magus must attempt to work through to liberate themselves or discover their holy guardian angel now it's worth pointing out at this point that philo's psychological interpretation of angels demons and daemones never really proved popular with either christians or jews both christians and jews maintained a much more mainstream idea that it was well really demons that possessed you like supernatural nasty monsters that possessed you not psychological desire for like the cute guy down the street uh for them this was really demonic entities and really angelic powers serving god or or serving the powers of evil that concerned them so the ideas of philo never really took root in the jewish world in fact they're only preserved by christians and even from the christian perspective demons remained from an orthodox point of view very real creatures capable of inflicting great physical and spiritual harm again they weren't merely psychological aspects of ourselves that we needed to use philosophy to conquer rather the demonic was a representation of the world of evil and it was through the power of god or through christ that that evil was eventually conquered not through the power of philosophy or psychology so so we'll have to wait a couple of millennia until again we see a robust idea of angels and demons as being primarily psychological or psychic aspects of our own interiority so sia in a couple millennia freud and young very much unlike this phelonic interpretation of angels and demons that are psychological in character one of the clearest analyses of angels and demons as actual metaphysical and supernatural entities can be found in the works of the roman jewish historian josephus though curiously in josephus text the antiquities of the jews we see something like a bridge between the more psychological idea found in philo and the more straightforward idea of metaphysical entities to be found in his other text on the great revolt and this is interesting because it's josephus attempting to understand just what was going on with the king saul we mentioned saul earlier remember we have this evil spirit this ra that is sent from god that afflicts saul and causes him to experience what we would now call something like mental illness what's interesting in his account is that we have something like a combination of both greek and jewish ideas when it comes to discussing the demonic possession of saul here we have the idea that there was in fact an evil demon possessing him but that doctors are attending to him attempting to assuage his passions this is a very greek philosophical idea and it's rather than just merely having david playing his harp as a sort of music therapy to treat saul's demonic possession of course this idea of treating the passions with music lines up very well with both pythagorean and platonic ideas of how to sort of soothe the soul from the chaotic anarchic control of the passions which josephus seems to have in mind when describing this whole episode with saul but it's also the case that josephus took literal demonic possession very seriously as well in one of his accounts we're actually told that this therapy i.e exorcism is quote very powerful among us i.e the jewish people and that specifically solomon among all the kings in the world was given unique power over the world of the demonic and it was through the use of this kind of solomonic power that jewish people specifically had the ability to expel demons further in one of josephus's own accounts we have a mention of a certain eliezer which seems to have been one of josephus's commanders who actually expelled a demon in the presence of the emperor vespasian in this account we have the exorcist eliezer using both a special kind of ring but also some kind of magical root which when the possessed person smells that root the demon is expelled from their body in fact you can see physical proof of this josephus says by putting out a kind of bowl filled with water and as the demon exits the body of the possessed person that demon sort of splits or disturbs that water and you can see literally the demon leave the body again allegedly according to josephus and again we should always take what josephus says with somewhat of a grain of salt josephus is interested in more or less popularizing josephus more than he isn't telling the truth or anything else but this is such a strange story that perhaps something like this did in fact happen that perhaps he did have a certain eliezer who had a side gig as an exorcist aside from being a commander and perhaps did exercise someone in the presence of the emperor vest patient i suspect the emperor would have been i don't know entertained or something who knows in a further section in josephus book on the jewish war we're actually told perhaps something more about this route that the exorcist eliezer used in the performance here before vespation in this account we're told of a special kind of tree which seems to emit something like lightning and that the roots of this tree have a kind of magical power specifically a magical power over demons the problem of course with this tree is twofold one it doesn't exist anymore it seems to have been destroyed perhaps during the great revolt and two if you actually attempt to get one of the roots from this plant you immediately die this tree the badass tree of which the root is also called the bharas this bharas root is luckily able to be obtained although through somewhat strange means for instance if one were to pour the urine of a woman or the menstrual blood of a woman on the root of the tree it will allow you to grab the root and cut it off although you have to hold it upside down as you're carrying it otherwise it will kill you again luckily if you don't have women's urine or menstrual blood there's another way to get the root as well in this way you dig a trench around an area of the root exposing the root and then you tie a dog's leash to the root and as you attempt to walk away the dog will try to chase you i suppose thus dislodging the root and well killing the dog but you get the root apparently if the dog snatches the root out of the tree i don't think you have to hold the root upside down to avoid being killed by the magical badass root now what's important about this badass root aside from the fact that it will kill you and it doesn't exist anymore is that it can be used in exorcisms and it seems like this badass root is exactly the kind of root that was used by the commander eliezer during the exorcism before the emperor vestipation so clearly by the time of the dead sea scrolls by the time of jesus of nazareth and by josephus we already have a relatively sophisticated idea about just how exorcism is meant to happen the dead sea scrolls have given us a liturgical mechanism by which to drive demons away through instilling fear in them of god we see in jesus the idea that you can command spirits through very strong language and by learning their secret name therefore transferring them from one kind of being to another and in josephus we have the use of perhaps magical rings and roots which also seem to be somewhat magical that have the ability to drive these demons out now the roots idea goes back to ancient antiquity already by the time of josephus but already we're seeing here the elements of a very sophisticated theory of exorcism using a wide variety of liturgies magical words commands incantations magical rings and magical roots already by the turn of the common era exorcism is becoming extraordinarily sophisticated in the jewish world we can see much of this really fascinating exorcism technology coming together in a very fascinating formula found in the greek magical papyri here we have a really fascinating exorcism ritual to be found in pgm4 it's fascinating for lots of different reasons one is it's actually bilingual it's written in both old coptic and in greek with some sections of the conjuration being done in coptic and some of them being done in greek what's also really fascinating is that it seems to combine a lot of what we've already seen from jewish exorcism rituals from previous time periods being somewhat synthesized into one new kind of ritual this incantation is interesting because it involves the command language we've already seen for instance in the exorcisms of jesus here we have command language in both natural language but also in magical language but also the use of magical metals here we have the use of tin for an amulet to secure the person possessed after the exorcism has been completed here the herbs in question are actually used as a kind of rope to protect the person being exercised throughout the exorcism but also they're being used as a scourge to drive the demon out what's really important about that i think is that this harkens back all the way to the neo-assyrian text that we looked at previously in which a scourge was also used there to drive demons out as well notice here the text is also highly syncretistic this is very common for text in the greek magical pyri i've made a whole video just on the greek magical papyri if you're interested in checking that out but notice here again we have a wide range of techniques being used to drive away the demon but also we have a wide range of theological expressions found in this text as well for instance we have a invocation to specifically the jewish god with the addition of a slight christian element with some paganism thrown in throughout as well indeed there's some clear gnostic elements combined in this spell also of course this kind of syncretism is very common both in exorcisms and magic more generally as in much magical practice we might conclude that when the going gets tough the tough gets syncretistic so what's fascinating about this ritual is what we've seen in the development of jewish exorcism rituals for the past several hundred years are in some sense melded together in this incantation found in the greek magical papyri and in fact i think this incantation is probably a window into how common exorcisms were performed on the day to day assuming people got exercised day-to-day they might have and we see that all of these elements get combined in this text from the greek magical papyrus what's fascinating by putting the greek magical papyrus into conversation with the other texts that we've seen from josephus the dead sea scrolls and jesus of nazareth is that this greek magical papyrus probably gives us a window onto a wide range of exorcistic procedures from common everyday people seeking relief from suffering all the way up to perhaps even very wealthy upper class people who also could be afflicted with these kinds of demonic possessions in this episode we've covered the development of the concept of possession and exorcism in israelite religion and judaism over the course of about 800 to a thousand years from the earliest periods of the hebrew bible all the way into the early years of the common era in the next episode we're going to shift the rabbinical judaism proper and it's there we're going to see interesting developments in anti-demon technology we're going to find some exorcisms that were otherwise lost for nearly a thousand years accounts of possessed structures in fact we're going to look at an account of a possessed well where one spirit even warns the rabbis look i might be an evil spirit but there's an even worse spirit over there in that well and if you don't let me live there well they're gonna let this other evil spirit live there and so they have to figure out how to drive the evil spirit out of this possessed well and of course we'll spend a lot of time looking at the development of the kabbalah it's incredibly innovative and interesting demonology and how that demonology would spawn the most fearful form of possession in all of modern and contemporary judaism the horrifying entity known as the dybbuk though let's not let the divot get all the attention here what's interesting about the kabbalah is it also introduces a form of voluntary beneficent possession in this voluntary beneficent form of possession the person can actually undergo what is called eboor or spiritual pregnancy the opposite of debuc or dabak the clinging by the evil dead in which the soul of the person can actually be unified with the soul of a deceased righteous person in order to gain spiritual strength and that spiritual strength can elevate you beyond your normal ability to resist sin and can even elevate you to the position of a potential messiah indeed there are even four different forms of beneficent or good possession to be found in the development of the kabbalah in the early modern period so i hope you'll join us as we turn next time to the development of the ideas of possession and exorcism in the rabbinical and the kabbalistic world if you're interested in the history of demons angels spirits occult philosophy kabbalah and alchemy make sure to subscribe these are all core content areas here at esoterica also if you want to support the creation of accessible free content and topics on western esotericism i hope you consider supporting us on patreon or with a one-time donation your support of esoterica helps to make the channel possible and i really appreciate your support of our work i thought i'd mention some of the texts that i found useful in preparing this episode although i'm going to hold off with the text specifically on kabbalah and the dybbuk for the next episode so if you're interested in that material make sure to check out the end of that episode for books and references on that material as well the classic text possession and exorcism by osterite remains basically the most important touchstone in the field although there are sections that significantly need updating it's still pretty reliable and if you're interested in the cultural spiritual and religious dimensions of the concepts of possession and exorcism that's where i'd start although i will say that the text is overall pretty good i would in the individual instances of studies that he does i would certainly go look up the modern contemporary scholarship on what's going on in exorcism and possession in those specific cases for instance we know a ton more about exorcism and possession in the ancient near east world and in the ancient egyptian world than he did when he wrote that book so those sections specifically are quite thin so again i would really recommend checking his work against more contemporary scholarship but it's certainly a great place to start if you're interested in egyptian magic specifically the magic around execration and exorcisms that i mentioned earlier in the video the standard text here is text ancient egyptian magical texts it's a little bit difficult to find and when you do find it it can be a little expensive although i think that there are copies online at archive.org that are in the public domain although i'm not quite sure about that this handy relatively short volume contains a wide range of different spells that have been recovered and translated for an ancient egyptian and translated with a high degree of scholarly precision it's really wonderful to see the ancient egyptian words that you can look up if you so desire along with the text so this text is very very reliable in terms of its translation this little volume is fantastic for the range of spells that it contains including many exorcistic style and execration spells that i discussed earlier in the episode i think my favorite spell is for repulsing a kind of evil dead entity with its uh face upside down which sounds positively spooky you can read that spell in the book as well so this text is really wonderful although i do think it will need updating at some point pretty soon this is especially given the great leaps and bounds made in egyptian demonology for instance the university of swansea has the fantastic demonological database where you can look through hundreds of demons and so the the research being done on egyptian religion egyptian magic egyptian technology is all going to need to be updated at some point in the near future and new scholarship is appearing all the time although i will say that this text remains reliable and it remains a fascinating read especially if you're interested in egyptian magic or heka my favorite introduction to mesopotamian religion is by far ivan ruscha's ancient mesopotamian religion it's a grappling name book it is a slim volume relatively easy to get not terribly expensive and it is a no-nonsense no-fluff introduction to ancient mesopotamian religion from gods to magic to medicine to the afterlife everything it is a wonderful text and very accessible in terms of writing style and in terms of enormous clarity and the content that he provides so again i would really recommend picking up this volume if you're interested in ancient mesopotamian religion magic afterlife and the gods this text is backed by careful archaeology and a very clear understanding of text in the original language so again well worth picking up and well worth having on your shelf if you're a student of history and magic and religion whitmer's text jesus the galilean exorcist is a single best study on this aspect of jesus's life and ministry in english that i know of she does an amazing job analyzing the various accounts of exorcisms performed by jesus in the various gospels and does a really really solid job of locating the language and the process of those exorcisms in their social and historical context there in 1st century judea and i think by understanding jesus primarily as an exorcist and a healer first and as a prophet and a messiah second we actually get closer to understanding the historical jesus as a person in his ministry so i really recommend checking out whitmer's book here because it gives us a glimpse onto jesus how i think he would have been remembered had he not become the messiah of christianity so again whitmer's text jesus the galilean exorcist highly recommended really fantastic text on really putting this aspect of jesus's life and work into historical and religious context so again i hope you'll join me next time as we turn to rabbinic judaism to the kabbalah to the rise of the dybbuk and the spiritual form of possession eboar that lifts the soul into the world of the righteous until next time i'm dr justin sledge and you've been watching esoterica where we explore the arcane side of history philosophy and religion you

Channel: ESOTERICA

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Keywords: occultism, magic, mysticism, magick, occult, western esotericism, occult lecture, jewish mysticism, qabalah, judaism, jewish magic, angelic magic, solomonic magic, kabbalistic magic, kabbalah history, israel, Israelite magic, magic in the bible, ancient jewish magic, kabbalah, possession, exorcism, philo of alexandria, Josephus, jesus, greek magical papyri, pazuzu, ancient egypt, sumerian magic, cuneiform, ancient near east, demons, bible demons, the exorcist, real exorcism, egyptian magic

Id: 1mZfhHGO-q0

Length: 61min 37sec (3697 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 16 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/OtherWisdom]

You've got some excellent content. Keep up the good work.