The ancient religion of Accad was very similar to the Shamanism professed by Siberian and Samoyed tribes at the present time. There was believed to be a spirit in every object. Good or bad spirits swarmed in the world, and there was scarcely anything that could be done which might not risk demoniacal possession. These good and bad spirits were controlled by priests and sorcerers. All diseases were caused by evil spirits, and the bulls and other creatures which guarded the entrance to houses were there to protect them from their power. The priests were magicians. There were at one period of the development of the Babylonian mythology three hundred spirits of heaven and six hundred spirits of earth; the most dreadful of these latter were the “seven spirits,” who were born without father and mother, and brought plague and evil on the earth. Magic formulæ for warding off the attacks of demons were commonly used, and charms and talismans were extensively employed. The phylacteries of the Jews were talismans, and were of Accadian origin. The sorcerer bound his charm, “knotted with seven knots, round the limbs of the sick man, and this, with the further application of holy water, would, it was believed, infallibly produce a cure; while the same result might be brought about by fixing a sentence out of a good book on the sufferer’s head as he lay in bed.”[202]
Accadian literature, Mr. George Smith tells us, is rich in collections of charms and formulæ of exorcism belonging to the very earliest period of Babylonian history. There are magic formulæ of all kinds, some to ward off sorcery, some to bewitch other persons.
The following is a specimen of the exorcisms used to drive away evil spirits, and to cure the diseases which were believed to be caused by their agency:—
“The noxious god, the noxious spirit of the neck, the spirit of the desert, the spirit of the mountain, the spirit of the sea, the spirit of the morass, the noxious cherub of the city, this noxious wind which seizes the body (and) the health of the body: O, spirit of heaven, remember! O, spirit of earth, remember!
“The burning spirit of the neck which seizes the man, the burning spirit which seizes the man, the spirit which works evil, the creation of the evil spirit: O, spirit of heaven, remember! O, spirit of earth, remember!
“Wasting, want of health, the evil spirit of the ulcer, spreading quinsey of the gullet, the violent ulcer, the noxious ulcer: O, spirit of heaven, remember! O, spirit of earth, remember!
“Sickness of the entrails, sickness of the heart, the palpitation of a sick heart, sickness of bile, sickness of the head, noxious colic, the agitation of terror, flatulency of the entrails, noxious illness, lingering sickness, nightmare: O, spirit of heaven, remember! O, spirit of earth, remember!”[203]
In the great magic collection of invocations copied by the order of Asurbanipal, we have a long litany on the “Spirit of Fever”; the lords and ladies of the earth, stars, the light of life, the spirit of Hurki and his talismanic ship, the spirit of Utu, umpire of the gods, and many others are implored to “conjure it.”[204]
Professor Lenormant considers that the idea of punishment of sin by means of disease was a dogma of a later school of Chaldæan thought. The old religion of spirits upon which Chaldæan magic was originally founded was independently the doctrine of the priests of magic, so that there were two sets of priests in later Chaldæan civilization—the old class who composed incantations to the spirits who fought with and replaced the disease-demons, and the theological priests who urged repentance for sin as the only means of the cure of disease.[205]
In the Accadian philosophy there was in everything a dualism of spirits. Innumerable hosts of them caused all the phenomena of nature, from the movements of the stars to the life and death, the health and disease of every human being. This dualism was as marked as that of the religion of Zoroaster; everywhere and in everything the good spirits fought against the evil ones, discord prevailed throughout the universe; and on this conception rested the whole theory of sacred magic. Man’s only help against the attacks of bad spirits, and the plagues and diseases which they brought upon him, lay in the invocation of good spirits by means of priests, sacred rites, talismans, and charms. These could put to flight the demons by helping the good spirits in their constant warfare with them. Magic therefore became a system elaborated with scientific exactness, and a vast pantheon of gods became necessary. Hea was the great god of conjurational magic; he was the supreme protector of men and of nature in the war between good and evil. When neither word, nor rite, nor talisman, nor help of the other divinities of heaven availed to help mankind, Hea was all-powerful; and this was because, as Lenormant says,[206] Hea was alone acquainted with the awful power of the supreme name. “Before this name everything bows in heaven and in earth and in Hades, and it alone can conquer the Maskim (a species of evil demon), and stop their ravages. The gods themselves are enthralled by this name, and render it obedience.”