In their contribution to Purity and the Forming of Religious Traditions, Michael Guichard and Lionel Marti recount a spell for getting rid of a menacing wild cat who brings evil omens by growling and moaning in the yard.
Here’s the recipe: At night, the victim set up a stoup full of water, and put into it tamarisk, gypsum, asphalt, big and small peas, and left it during the night under the stars. In the morning, it is clay, and he made from it a colored cat figure. He took two trays, one for Ea and one for Marduk, and prepared three rations of food, twelve breads in each, made of fine flower, with honey and butter. He filled a drinking vase with beer, and set up a censor where he burned incense. He stood upright and cried out to Ea and Marduk:
O Ea and Marduk
Merciful gods, who deliver the one who is bond
Who act as a stake for the weak
Who love human beings!
O Ea and Maruk
Be present in this day, during my judgment
Judge my case and decide my affair.
The evil of this wild cat, which growls and moans in my house
Which terrifies me day and night
Whether it is a failure in the eyes of my god or my goddess
O Ea and Marduk, radiant gods
Let me escape the evil of this bad omen.
May they not come closer or approach me.
May the cat cross the river, pass the mountain, move 3600 double leagues
May he go to heaven like the smoke of incense
May he not return to his place.
“Then he threw the cat figure in the fiver, and without looking back he walked directly into his house.”
The recipe, I imagine, is slightly different for domesticated felines.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
