Open Collections

Arbøll, Troels Pank

Database of Religious History (DRH)

The exorcist (Akkadian āšipu/mašmaššu) acted in an intellectual community as one of five main scholarly professions throughout the Neo-Assyrian period. Exorcists were primarily concerned with medical and magical healing, as well as diagnosing causes of illness, for private - and frequently highborn - clients. Furthermore, they could perform rituals for the city, temples, and the court. Accordingly, they were often connected to the royal court, as well as official and religious institutions in various cities. However, exorcists were not priests. Among the tools of their trade were numerous rituals, medical remedies, prayers, and incantations. Exorcists in the Neo-Assyrian period did not distinguish between what we today label as “magic” and “medicine”, instead believing that most illnesses were caused by supernatural forces, such as gods or demons. Once a patient was seized by an illness, healing could be achieved through identifying the ailment and the agent causing the malady, and subsequently applying therapeutic or ritual treatments to cure the illness and its symptoms, as well as ritual actions to appease the god in question. Healing therefore consisted of both medical and magical treatments, and the term encapsulates the combined focus in the exorcist’s methods for diagnosing and treating illness as well as ensuring social, physical, or mental wellbeing. Although an exorcist’s duties partially overlapped with those of the physician (asû) and diviner (bārû), the exorcist appears to have been the primary professional practicing a broad selection of traditional Assyrian and Babylonian healing methods in the Neo-Assyrian period. Accordingly, the translation “exorcist” is inadequate and often incorrect in describing his competences and duties. The majority of sources from this period can be dated roughly to the 8th and 7th centuries BCE, and they were excavated in the royal text collections at Nineveh, a temple library in Kalhu (Nimrud), private libraries in Assur (especially the “Haus des Beschwörungspriesters”), and a private text collection from Huzirina (Sultantepe).

Other

eng

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0438182

Non UBC

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/