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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb. Today is a Saturday, so we have

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Speaker 1: a vault episode for you. This is going to be

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Speaker 1: one that originally published last year ten eight, twenty twenty four.

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Speaker 1: We have lots of pazuzu adjacent entities to discuss in

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Speaker 1: the Demons of Ancient Mesopotamia.

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Speaker 2: Part one Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production

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Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 2: And I am Joe McCormick. And on today's episode of

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Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind, our month long celebration of

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Speaker 2: Halloween continues. Now, if you've been a listener for a while,

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Speaker 2: you know what's going on. You know what we do

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Speaker 2: every October. But if you are new to the show,

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Speaker 2: here's the deal. Every October we devote all of our

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Speaker 2: core episodes, our Tuesday and Thursday episodes to seasonally creepy

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Speaker 2: subject matter things about ghosts, monsters, devils, curses, horrors and frights.

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Speaker 2: So last week we talked all about spooky trains, about

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Speaker 2: locomotive horror stories, ghost trains, and the phenomenon of the

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Speaker 2: Victorian railway madness. Today we are beginning a new series

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Speaker 2: on the demons and monsters of ancient Mesopotamian religion because

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Speaker 2: they had some really exquisite demons, and as a concrete

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Speaker 2: example to kick things off today, I wanted to start

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Speaker 2: by talking about a specific ancient artifact. For my money,

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Speaker 2: one of the creepiest looking artifacts from all of antiquity,

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Speaker 2: and that is a mask of Humbaba.

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Speaker 1: Ah Mbaba is an old friend of the show. We've

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Speaker 1: talked about Mbaba not stuff to blow your mind before.

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Speaker 2: One of my favorites. Definitely Humbaba came up in our

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Speaker 2: series on the origins of the religious imagery of the Halo,

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Speaker 2: because Humbaba, as described in the Epic of Gilgamesh, famously

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Speaker 2: has these seven auras or radiances that are kind of

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Speaker 2: like an evil halo. But first I want to talk

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Speaker 2: specifically about this artifact and then we can talk a

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Speaker 2: bit more about Humbaba as an idea. So this artifact

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Speaker 2: is a baked clay disc depicting a hideous face. It's

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Speaker 2: roughly three point three inches in height and in width,

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Speaker 2: and it was produced during the Old Babylonian period between

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Speaker 2: about eighteen hundred and sixteen hundred BCE. It was excavated

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Speaker 2: by the nineteenth century Assyrian archaeologist Hormuz Ressam from the

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Speaker 2: site of the ancient Babylonian city of Sipper, which is

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Speaker 2: on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River in modern

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Speaker 2: day Iraq. Today this artifact is held in the collection

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Speaker 2: of the British Museum. Now, this sculpture is absolutely worth

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Speaker 2: looking up if you are able, but if not, I'm

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Speaker 2: gonna do my best to describe it. The mask shows

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Speaker 2: a humanoid face frozen in a pitiless grimace. It's got

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Speaker 2: the teeth clenched. The head is rounded in shape with

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Speaker 2: bulges in the outline of the head where the ears

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Speaker 2: would be uh. And it has wide, blank, empty gray eyes. Now,

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Speaker 2: I know in some cases these ancient Mesopotamian statues and

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Speaker 2: sculptures would have been painted and the paint has simply

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Speaker 2: weathered away over the years, which is the reason some

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Speaker 2: of these ancient statues have such unsettling blank eyes, just

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Speaker 2: these empty, cloudy pools of stone with no pupil or iris.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if that's the case with this clay

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Speaker 2: sculpture or if this is the way it was always

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Speaker 2: intended to look. Either way, the state in which it

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Speaker 2: has arrived to us in modernity. Is extremely unsettling looking.

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Speaker 2: But I think the most interesting detail about it I

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Speaker 2: haven't gotten to yet, and that is the texture of

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Speaker 2: the flesh. The entire surface of this monstrous face is

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Speaker 2: molded with a pattern like a labyrinth. So it's you

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Speaker 2: have a long, single thick line like a rope, folded

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Speaker 2: over and over upon itself to form every part of

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Speaker 2: this head, the hair, the forehead, the ears, the nose,

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Speaker 2: the cheeks, and the double rows of clenched killer teeth.

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Speaker 2: I think you can even see where the coil is

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Speaker 2: supposed to be at its midpoint, you know where it

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Speaker 2: folds over on itself. It's at the left side of

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Speaker 2: the mouth, where the jaws open.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, this is very unsettling looking, and if I were

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Speaker 1: to compare it to anything, it makes me think of

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Speaker 1: the character Prune Face from the nineteen ninety Dick Tracy movie. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's like that level of like wrinkliness, but then with

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Speaker 1: this also this vicious grin, this growling, toothy mouth. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's pretty intimidating.

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Speaker 2: But I think at least prune Face had pupils in

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Speaker 2: his eyes.

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Speaker 1: Somewhere in there. It was heavily littered. Yeah, the name implies.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so Humbaba or Huahwa these are different, and this

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Speaker 2: will come up throughout the series. Most of these entities

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Speaker 2: we're going to be talking about have multiple names from

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Speaker 2: different languages and stages in their cultural evolution. So this

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Speaker 2: character is known as Huawa in Sumerian sources and Humbaba

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Speaker 2: in Akkadian sources. I'm going to be calling him Humbaba.

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Speaker 1: The other side of the coin is that there are

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Speaker 1: best practices for pronouncing a lot of these words and

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Speaker 1: these names, so we can we can certainly get them wrong.

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Speaker 1: But on the other hand, we can't without you know,

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Speaker 1: any degree of failure, get it one hundred percent right,

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Speaker 1: because nobody knows one hundred percent exactly how any of

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Speaker 1: these given words or names were pronounced in the ancient

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Speaker 1: world in their original setting.

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Speaker 2: Very good point, Rob, We will be doing our best

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Speaker 2: with all of these ancient Mesopotamian words and names. We

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Speaker 2: will undoubtedly get some of them wrong in ways that

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Speaker 2: will be detectable to people who specialize in these ancient languages.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, to some extent, we don't fully know how

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Speaker 2: everything was pronounced in every case, and.

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Speaker 1: You know, probably better that we don't hit it dead on,

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Speaker 1: because we don't want to summon any of these entities.

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Speaker 1: Many of them have been asleep for a very long time.

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Speaker 1: We don't want to invite them into our modern world.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's often the case in these mythologies that you

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Speaker 2: might have a dead god that isn't really dead forever.

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Speaker 1: Oh. You know. The other thing that we risk is

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Speaker 1: if we chance on a mispronunciation of one of their

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Speaker 1: names that just hasn't been done before, we might chance

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Speaker 1: upon the original pronunciation that therefore summons them into the

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Speaker 1: modern world. There's like even the experts haven't been saying

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Speaker 1: one hundred percent right, we could air into the summoning space.

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Speaker 2: I can't even think about that, okay. Sobapa or Huahwah

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Speaker 2: is a character who features prominently in ancient Mesopotamian literature,

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Speaker 2: most famously in the different versions of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

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Speaker 2: As I said earlier, we talked about him at some

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Speaker 2: length in that series on the iconography of the Halo,

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Speaker 2: because Humbaba is described as having these seven terrifying auras,

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Speaker 2: these strange layers of deadly radiance that are taken off

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Speaker 2: one by one before he is eventually killed by Gilgamesh

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Speaker 2: and Gilgamesh's companion in Kidu. In Gilgamesh, Humbaba is described

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Speaker 2: as a giant, terrifying humanoid creature assigned by the god

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Speaker 2: in Leil, the lord of winds, to be the guardian

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Speaker 2: of the Cedar forest. And according to the Stephanie Dally

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Speaker 2: translation of Gilgamesh this is in Tablet two, Humbaba is

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Speaker 2: meant to be quote the terror of the people, Humbaba,

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Speaker 2: whose shout is the flood weapon, whose utterance is fire,

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Speaker 2: and whose breath is death. And we're told that Humbaba

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Speaker 2: can hear a rustling of branches in his forest from

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Speaker 2: sixty leagues away. So who would dare walk inside the

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Speaker 2: forbidden pines? Now, even though we've talked about Humbaba before,

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Speaker 2: I do think we probably want to come back and

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Speaker 2: talk about him some more. We might get into some

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Speaker 2: more depth in part two of this series. But specifically

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Speaker 2: in the context of this clay mask from ancient Sipper,

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Speaker 2: there is a question about the way that it looks.

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Speaker 2: What is the deal with the labyrinthine design on the

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Speaker 2: face is why is it represented as a horrific face

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Speaker 2: with these deep wrinkles the prune face look and the

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Speaker 2: wrinkles seem to be formed out of a folded rope.

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Speaker 2: There is an answer to this. We know conclusively why

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Speaker 2: it looks that way. The rope that makes the face

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Speaker 2: is not a rope. There is a cuneiform inscription on

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Speaker 2: the reverse side of the mask which tells us this

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Speaker 2: inscription is written by the hand of Warad Marduk, a diviner,

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Speaker 2: son of Kubarum, also a diviner. And what the diviner

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Speaker 2: says is, according to the British Museum's translation quote, if

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Speaker 2: the coils of the colon resemble the head of Huawa.

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Speaker 2: This is an omen of Sargon, who ruled the land.

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Speaker 2: Oh man, Oh yeah. And then there's a part with

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Speaker 2: some text missing, but it says if and then there's

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Speaker 2: an illision, the house of a man will expand, so

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Speaker 2: it's saying the coils of a colon. This horrifying mask

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Speaker 2: is supposed to represent the piled up intestines of a

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Speaker 2: slaughtered animal, which have been used in tons of cultures

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Speaker 2: all throughout history as a stimulus for divination, meaning that

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Speaker 2: a diviner could read signs of the future and gain

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Speaker 2: access to privileged information by looking at the guts of

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Speaker 2: a slaughtered animal, sometimes at the liver as well, or

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Speaker 2: sometimes the intestines. In this case, I believe the animal

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Speaker 2: is supposed to be a sheep, but in various usages

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Speaker 2: you would get different animals might be a sheep or

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Speaker 2: a goat, or an ox or so forth. In this

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Speaker 2: particular case, the inscription suggests that if the diviner sees

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Speaker 2: entrails that coil to represent the face of Humbaba, this

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Speaker 2: is an omen of maybe successful conquest or expanding power,

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Speaker 2: or the expansion of one's house. So according to a

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Speaker 2: book we were both consulting called Gods, Demons and Symbols

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Speaker 2: of Ancient Mesopotamia and Illustrated Dictionary. This is by a

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Speaker 2: couple of scholars named Jeremy Black and Anthony Green, British

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Speaker 2: Museum Press, nineteen ninety two. According to this book, the

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Speaker 2: face of Huawa seen by a diviner typically means revolution

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Speaker 2: in the state, which I guess doesn't sound so great

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Speaker 2: if you are currently the king. And a lot of

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Speaker 2: times these divinations would be given to a powerful person

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Speaker 2: coded as given to a powerful person such as a king.

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Speaker 2: But the authors also suggest there some evidence that clay

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Speaker 2: masks representing the face of Humbaba were hung up on walls,

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Speaker 2: maybe in palaces and temples as charms to ward off evil.

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Speaker 2: So as terrifying as this kind of face looks, masks

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Speaker 2: like this may have been thought to have the power

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Speaker 2: to ward off evil rather than bring it, which is

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Speaker 2: what we today call apotropaeic magic, protective or warding off magic.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and we'll get into at least one other

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Speaker 1: key example of this as we proceed through this episode.

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Speaker 2: Now, like I said, we may have to come back

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Speaker 2: to Humbaba later in this series, but I also think

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Speaker 2: we should near the beginning of the series definitely acknowledge

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Speaker 2: the ancient Mesopotamian supernatural entity that will be most recognizable

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Speaker 2: to fans of modern horror movies because of his appearance

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Speaker 2: in The Exorcist, and that is the demon Pazuzu.

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Speaker 1: That's right, Pazuzu cast a long shadow over modern horror

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Speaker 1: cinema and horror fiction. Also just really stands out the

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Speaker 1: iconography of this particular demon because it features a pair

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Speaker 1: of wings that in silhouette kind of look like an

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Speaker 1: X behind a humanoid body, has like a horned dog

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Speaker 1: like head, very fierce eyes and face, and yeah works

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Speaker 1: great in silhouette and is used not only in The Exorcist.

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Speaker 1: We mentioned this on Weird House Cinema, but when we

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Speaker 1: did an episode on Ridley Scott's Legend, the same statue

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Speaker 1: also shows up two different times in the movie Legend,

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Speaker 1: just in the background or in the foreground.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's funny, and the Exorcist was already out at

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Speaker 2: that point. That's the funny thing.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think Pazzuzu got representation, and it was

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Speaker 1: either like, let's get some more gigs, Let's get some

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Speaker 1: more projects. I want to work with Ridley Scott.

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Speaker 2: Now, later we will get to the question of whether

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Speaker 2: these cinematic portrayals accurately captured the spirit of Pazuzu. Maybe

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Speaker 2: they partially do, and maybe there's some ways they don't.

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Speaker 2: They don't get it quite right, but at least within

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Speaker 2: the story of The Exorcist, Pazzuzu is the name given

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Speaker 2: to a demon that possesses and torments the twelve year

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Speaker 2: old Reagan McNeil. This is the story in the original

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Speaker 2: nineteen seventy one novel by William Peter Blattie, and it's

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Speaker 2: carried over into the nineteen seventy three film adaptation. Directed

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Speaker 2: by William Friedkin. Though in the original novel and movie,

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Speaker 2: the demon does not run around saying I am Pazzuzu.

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Speaker 2: You get more of that in like The Exorcist to

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Speaker 2: the Heretic, I think, which is you know, there's a

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Speaker 2: kind of downgrading of some of the subtleties of the

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Speaker 2: original in that. But the connection with Pazuzu is established

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Speaker 2: primarily through a prologue in the film in which the

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Speaker 2: Catholic priest Lancaster Maren is This is the character who

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Speaker 2: ultimately leads and performs the exorcism rights in the third

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Speaker 2: act of the movie, he's working at an archaeological dig

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Speaker 2: in Iraq, and in multiple contexts you see him encounter

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Speaker 2: a statue of a frightening, monstrous creature from ancient times.

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Speaker 2: And one thing I always liked about The Exorcist is

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Speaker 2: that the meaning of this confrontation is never made too explicit,

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Speaker 2: so it doesn't get corny. We don't get Maren facing

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Speaker 2: off against it at the beginning and saying, you know,

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Speaker 2: giving some monologue like you are evil, Pazuzu, I must

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Speaker 2: defeat you.

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Speaker 1: You know that.

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Speaker 2: You don't get a direct address till towards the end

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Speaker 2: of the film. Instead, there is just this vague, powerful

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Speaker 2: sense of dread that the entity depicted in these ancient

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Speaker 2: artworks is somehow present now, is powerful, and its shadow

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Speaker 2: has somehow fallen over our lives now. Of course, while

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Speaker 2: I love The Exorcist, you know it's a great horror movie,

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Speaker 2: in the modern world, you shouldn't go to The Exorcist

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Speaker 2: to understand what an entity like Pazuzu originally was and

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Speaker 2: originally meant. In The Exorcist, Pazuzu is rendered as a

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Speaker 2: demon in the modern Christian sense of the word, meaning

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Speaker 2: a malevolent spirit, a minion of Satan, which can possess

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Speaker 2: the bodies of innocent humans and use them to Satanic ends.

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Speaker 2: So this is a Christian demon, specifically a demon as

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Speaker 2: imagined by a twentieth century Catholic author. But this leads

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Speaker 2: to the question, what was Pazuzu in his original time

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Speaker 2: and place. Does it make sense to call him a demon?

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Speaker 2: And if it does, should we at least modify our

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Speaker 2: understanding of the English word demon a little bit for

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Speaker 2: the purpose of the discussion, Maybe a little bit less

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Speaker 2: the Catholic William Peter Bladi demon and maybe more a

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Speaker 2: demon in the broader Greek sense of the term.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a very important question to ask before

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Speaker 1: we proceed into any more detailed discussion on these various demons. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: what is a demon? We certainly it's one of those

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Speaker 1: terms that you just throw it out there and it's

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Speaker 1: going to summon various images and ideas. You might, for instance,

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Speaker 1: think of the ball rog and various chaotic evil denizens

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Speaker 1: of the Abyss from dungeons and dragons, and of course

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Speaker 1: these are all based on entities from other you know,

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Speaker 1: faiths and traditions and so forth. You might also well

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Speaker 1: think of the name of various names from Christian demonology,

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Speaker 1: particularly those that crossed over out of theology and into

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Speaker 1: popular culture for everything from horror movies to rock music.

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Speaker 1: And again many of these given names, many of these

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Speaker 1: entities were appropriated from other cultures and faiths, some transformed

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Speaker 1: into Christian demons, and in their original context were considered

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Speaker 1: gods or some other spiritual entities. And yet at the

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Speaker 1: same time, even in discussing you know, mythic, legendary and

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Speaker 1: folkloric entities, either casually or even from like from the

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Speaker 1: level of scholarship in academia, the word demon is often used.

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Speaker 1: It instantly provides a starting point from which to potentially

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Speaker 1: understand perhaps a foreign concept or a creature or entity

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Speaker 1: in another tradition, you know, like, and you see this

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Speaker 1: with other words as well, like you'll frequently if you're

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Speaker 1: reading about say Chinese mythology and Chinese legend and law,

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Speaker 1: you might read about goblins or trolls. You might read

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Speaker 1: about ogres in Japanese lore, and so forth. You know

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Speaker 1: these are There are certain certain types of monsters, types

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Speaker 1: of figures, types of imaginary beings that seem largely universal,

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Speaker 1: and when you get into the particulars, yes, things change

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Speaker 1: a bit, but in general you can often safely say, well,

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Speaker 1: this is a demon from this particular faith. There's still

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Speaker 1: a lot of room for error, and there is a

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Speaker 1: lot of error out there when you look into especially

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Speaker 1: like historic understandings of some of these entities. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: we can throw out the word demon, and we can

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Speaker 1: strike close to the truth. We can strike close to

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Speaker 1: perhaps the original intended meaning here, and as such we

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Speaker 1: can loosely think of demons as the following evil supernatural

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Speaker 1: spirits or beings of some sort that were never human,

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Speaker 1: are not mortal, and yet exist beneath the status of

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Speaker 1: gods and sometimes demi gods. They are often conceived as

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Speaker 1: punishers in the afterlife, though they're also frequently seen as

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Speaker 1: spreaders of sin, disease, death, and temptation in the world

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Speaker 1: of the living. In Christian traditions, they are often described

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Speaker 1: as fallen angels, followers of the rebel angel Lucifer now

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Speaker 1: Satan and the ruler of Hell, and in other traditions

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Speaker 1: they may seem at times more part of a cosmic

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Speaker 1: order than agents and rebellion against said order. But even

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Speaker 1: then you'll still find room in such tradition systems for

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Speaker 1: a notion of something that is seen as an agent

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Speaker 1: of misfortune or temptation out there working in the world,

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Speaker 1: something that is an enemy of mortal men and may

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Speaker 1: be working outside of the graces of the divine. Now,

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Speaker 1: the word itself in English demon derives from the Greek demos,

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Speaker 1: which could be benevolent or malevolent. Like in the Greek tradition,

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Speaker 1: this could be a good supernatural being or a bad

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Speaker 1: supernatural being. Just because it was demos. Just because it

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Speaker 1: was a demon in this context doesn't mean it's necessarily

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Speaker 1: evil and out to get you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you can interpret it as like a spirit.

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Speaker 1: Now turning to more specifically to the ancient Mesopotamian world,

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Speaker 1: one of the books that we look to here was

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Speaker 1: a book titled God's Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia

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Speaker 1: An Illustrated Dictionary. This was originally published in nineteen ninety

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Speaker 1: two and the authors here are Jeremy Black and Anthony Green,

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Speaker 1: and illustrated by Tessa Rickards. The authors here point out

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Speaker 1: that the word demon works as an approximate translation of

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Speaker 1: a couple of different terms that refer to both good

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Speaker 1: and evil spirits, so very much in the Greek sense

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Speaker 1: of the word demon. These terms are in Akkadian rabisu

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Speaker 1: and in Sumerian moskin, both of which again can refer

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Speaker 1: to good and or evil spirits. I've also seen more

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Speaker 1: head on translations that define the rabisu as lurker and

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Speaker 1: moscim as deputy or attorney. The authors point out that

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Speaker 1: during the Neo Assyrian period, roughly what nine twelve through six,

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Speaker 1: there were spells that basically said evil Rabisu, please see

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Speaker 1: yourself out, good Rubisu come on it. So you'd see

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Speaker 1: a lot of this sort of thing, like you want

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Speaker 1: the good demons. You don't want the bad demons, but

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Speaker 1: you're not just like no demons allowed, Like, yes, of

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Speaker 1: course the good demons can come in. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Black and Green's book includes a one tablet that's sort

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Speaker 2: of a figurine mating clay from the Neo Assyrian period.

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Speaker 2: They say it's probably from the seventh century BCE that

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Speaker 2: depicts a god named Ilamu, which means harry. And if

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Speaker 2: you look at the tablet, yeah, he's got like real

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Speaker 2: like hair coming out of it. Almost looks like Medusa.

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Speaker 2: The's locks of hair coming out like snakeheads. But yeah,

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Speaker 2: he's a hairy guy. And written on his arms, so

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Speaker 2: the kinea form is actually like spanning, it's going running

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Speaker 2: down the length of his biceps his arm. One arm

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Speaker 2: says get out, evil demon, and the other one says,

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Speaker 2: come in, good demon. And I was actually reading in

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Speaker 2: another book, a book called Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia by

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Speaker 2: the French historian Jean Botero. This is translated by Teresa

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Speaker 2: Lavender Fagan, and Botero argues that there really was no

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Speaker 2: word in any of the ancient Mesopotamian languages that meant

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Speaker 2: specifically demon in the way we use it like specifically

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Speaker 2: categorizing the class of evil harmful spirits. Instead, these evil

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Speaker 2: harmful spirits would be referred to sort of by their

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Speaker 2: individual names rather than as a class of types of beings.

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Speaker 2: And as far as classes of beings, you would just

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Speaker 2: have this larger like, yeah, you got spirits and they

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Speaker 2: could be good or bad.

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Speaker 1: Now, the rubisu mentioned how sometimes translated as lurker, and

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Speaker 1: it does seem to lurk. It sort of haunts it

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Speaker 1: lingers around an affected individual. Now. Black and Green also

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Speaker 1: stressed that in modern studies of ancient Mesopotamian art and

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Speaker 1: i kenography, Again this is a book from ninety two,

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Speaker 1: so acknowledging that there could potentially be some shift here,

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Speaker 1: but this seems to still be the case based on

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Speaker 1: even far more recent papers dealing with specific entities. But

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Speaker 1: they stress that the term demon is generally applied to

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Speaker 1: any entity that is an upright human body and also

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Speaker 1: has like hybrid creature elements while full on animal combinations

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Speaker 1: or something like on all fours, those are considered monsters.

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Speaker 1: So for instance, across between a lion and a duck,

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Speaker 1: that would be a monster. Across between a lion, duck

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Speaker 1: and a human like where it's more or less humanoid shape,

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Speaker 1: that would be a demon. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: From what I gather, the really rough way of thinking

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Speaker 2: about it is that if it's bipedal, it's usually a demon,

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Speaker 2: and if it's on all fours, it's probably a monster.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, they stress that demons are actually rare in

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Speaker 1: ancient Mesopotamia mythology and the names. Certainly this is the

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Speaker 1: case with name demons. The names we know are mostly

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Speaker 1: via their mention in various spells, and in many cases

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Speaker 1: we have little information regarding their nature or appearance, certainly

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Speaker 1: as far as evil demons and evil gods are concerned.

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Speaker 1: And this might be because it was just considered inappropriate

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Speaker 1: to depict some of them under most circumstances. Though, as

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Speaker 1: we've discussed already and will continue to discuss, there are

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Speaker 1: cases where you really want to show that horrid face

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Speaker 1: in full detail, Otherwise it might endanger you to create

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Speaker 1: their image. You know, you don't want to. You don't

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Speaker 1: want to summon the demon into your presence, even if

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Speaker 1: you were discussing it or ultimately using it to ward

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Speaker 1: off something else. But also it seems like sometimes you

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Speaker 1: need an image of the demon if you are trying

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Speaker 1: to ward it off. So I guess it comes down

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Speaker 1: to the basic idea that visual depictions and symbolic depictions

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Speaker 1: of these entities is powerful, and it can be powerful

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Speaker 1: in a way that helps deter them, or it can

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Speaker 1: be powerful in a way that attracts them. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: they write that quote. In some cases, descriptions of their

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Speaker 1: appearances are so vague and inconsistent as to suggest they

404
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Speaker 1: were not well established. So that's the other side of

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Speaker 1: the coin. It just might be well, it's not really

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Speaker 1: you know, there's not really a canon for how this

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Speaker 1: particular entity looked or even how it behaved. You know,

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Speaker 1: we might think about in our own like pop culture world,

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Speaker 1: in our own like urban legend world. You have a

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Speaker 1: general idea, what I mean, you have a very clear

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Speaker 1: idea what some entities look like. Like Jason Vorhees, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know what he looks like. You've seen it in

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Speaker 1: various films. There's shifts and how he's depicted, but there

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Speaker 1: are a number of elements that need to be in place. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: something like I don't know, Bloody Mary, it seems a

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Speaker 1: bit more vague, like I don't know if there's a

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Speaker 1: particular canon as to how she is supposed to look.

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Speaker 2: This I thought was really interesting, and this makes me

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Speaker 2: think we should actually come back sometime and do a

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Speaker 2: whole Halloween series on Yeah, what you could call like

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Speaker 2: canonically bounded versus unbounded monsters, monsters that have a very tight,

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Speaker 2: canonically set description and those that are extremely vague. And

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Speaker 2: in the case of the ones that are vague, where

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Speaker 2: does the horror come from? Because you know, when a

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Speaker 2: monster is, like say, represented in a movie, you know

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Speaker 2: what that movie representation looks like, and you can picture it.

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Speaker 2: But when there's a monster that is you don't even

428
00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:28,720
Speaker 2: get a very clear physical description. Where is the horror based?

429
00:26:28,840 --> 00:26:30,160
Speaker 2: What is it you're imagining?

430
00:26:30,520 --> 00:26:33,080
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, and I should probably draw in an example

431
00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:36,679
Speaker 1: that doesn't originate in a visual medium. I think if

432
00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:39,680
Speaker 1: I think back on entities, unreal entities that I had

433
00:26:39,800 --> 00:26:42,399
Speaker 1: varying degrees of fear of as a child, I can

434
00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:44,800
Speaker 1: think of the Boogeyman, and I can think of gray

435
00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:46,679
Speaker 1: aliens like the kind that you know are going to

436
00:26:46,680 --> 00:26:49,920
Speaker 1: potentially kidnap you and probe you and so forth, And

437
00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:53,920
Speaker 1: there's more of a definite idea of what a gray

438
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:57,240
Speaker 1: looks like. Where's the Boogieman? Yes, there are. I mean,

439
00:26:57,560 --> 00:27:00,600
Speaker 1: the big Boogeyman is sometimes depicted in certain like I

440
00:27:00,640 --> 00:27:03,959
Speaker 1: remember there being a way that the Real Ghostbuster's cartoon

441
00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:06,680
Speaker 1: depicted the Boogieman. But for the most part, the Boogieman

442
00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:09,720
Speaker 1: is up for grabs. There's no definite way that it looks,

443
00:27:10,040 --> 00:27:13,000
Speaker 1: but the fear of it, certainly when you're young, can

444
00:27:13,119 --> 00:27:14,000
Speaker 1: still be palpable.

445
00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:17,960
Speaker 2: Oh lord, I just looked up the Real Ghostbusters Boogieman.

446
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:20,520
Speaker 2: It looked why is it wearing a tuxedo?

447
00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:24,320
Speaker 1: I remember that being a pretty wild episode. There were

448
00:27:24,359 --> 00:27:27,080
Speaker 1: some episodes of the Real Ghostbusters that went pretty hard.

449
00:27:27,640 --> 00:27:30,760
Speaker 2: It looks like a pale rock and roll grimlin with

450
00:27:30,840 --> 00:27:35,959
Speaker 2: a disproportionately huge face, wearing lots of lipstick, with sharp teeth,

451
00:27:36,840 --> 00:27:41,320
Speaker 2: big long nose, purple punk haircut, and a tuxedo coat

452
00:27:41,400 --> 00:27:44,840
Speaker 2: with long tails. So it's dressed for a formal dinner.

453
00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:58,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a bad dude, all right. So anyway,

454
00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:00,399
Speaker 1: the main point here is that, yes, some of these

455
00:28:00,440 --> 00:28:04,040
Speaker 1: creatures would have been perhaps unbounded, you know, we would

456
00:28:04,040 --> 00:28:08,520
Speaker 1: have been vague and inconsistent, But others became extremely important

457
00:28:08,640 --> 00:28:13,960
Speaker 1: in ancient Mesopotamian mythology and in religious practice, and we

458
00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:16,440
Speaker 1: have at least one case of a sort of demonic

459
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:20,800
Speaker 1: face turn of an evil entity becoming, if not good,

460
00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:27,199
Speaker 1: at least useful for our protection. And you know, I

461
00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:30,040
Speaker 1: guess this under line is an important reality that we

462
00:28:30,119 --> 00:28:32,800
Speaker 1: have discussed in the past and the show, and that

463
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:36,240
Speaker 1: is that religion and belief transform and evolve over time.

464
00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:42,880
Speaker 1: New ideas emerge, foreign ideas enter into a different region

465
00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:47,480
Speaker 1: or a different belief system. Things change, and it impacts

466
00:28:47,520 --> 00:28:50,800
Speaker 1: the exact form and function of various fantastic entities and creatures,

467
00:28:50,960 --> 00:28:54,920
Speaker 1: sometimes utterly transforming them. And this is especially the case

468
00:28:54,920 --> 00:28:58,320
Speaker 1: here today because we're ultimately considering the passage of thousands

469
00:28:58,320 --> 00:29:02,160
Speaker 1: of years here, and we're not only talking about like

470
00:29:02,240 --> 00:29:05,040
Speaker 1: subtle changes in belief or okay, well, this god becomes

471
00:29:05,080 --> 00:29:07,960
Speaker 1: a little more popular, this demon becomes a little more popular.

472
00:29:08,120 --> 00:29:11,959
Speaker 1: Sometimes we're talking about the emergence of groundbreaking new concepts

473
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:15,560
Speaker 1: and how people considered their place in the cosmos and

474
00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:20,040
Speaker 1: the structure and function of the unseen world. Now, Black

475
00:29:20,080 --> 00:29:24,240
Speaker 1: and Green proposed a simplified five phase chronology for the

476
00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:28,040
Speaker 1: development of gods and demons in ancient Mesopotamia. And I'm

477
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:29,920
Speaker 1: going to roll through it here real quick, because I

478
00:29:29,920 --> 00:29:32,560
Speaker 1: feel like it's you may get lost in some of

479
00:29:32,600 --> 00:29:34,840
Speaker 1: the dates here and the different periods, but I think

480
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:38,240
Speaker 1: the overall flow is important, right. So first up is

481
00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:42,560
Speaker 1: the formative phase. They write that during the late Ubaid

482
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:45,960
Speaker 1: and Uru periods, very roughly in the neighborhood of the

483
00:29:45,960 --> 00:29:51,640
Speaker 1: fourth millennium BCE, we have the earliest composite beings envisioned,

484
00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:56,880
Speaker 1: combining various elements of different animals. Up next the optimistic phase.

485
00:29:57,280 --> 00:30:00,880
Speaker 1: This would have been during the Acadian period let's say

486
00:30:00,880 --> 00:30:03,680
Speaker 1: two twenty three thirty four through twenty one to fifty

487
00:30:03,680 --> 00:30:09,120
Speaker 1: four BCE, and this is when we have galliptic scenes

488
00:30:09,240 --> 00:30:12,680
Speaker 1: depicting the capture and punishment, the busting, if you will,

489
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:13,960
Speaker 1: of evil demons.

490
00:30:14,520 --> 00:30:15,440
Speaker 2: Makes me feel good.

491
00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:18,960
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then we have the balanced phase during the

492
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:22,920
Speaker 1: Old Babylonian period eighteen ninety four BCE through fifteen ninety

493
00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:26,600
Speaker 1: five BCE, and we have cylinder and seal designs that

494
00:30:26,720 --> 00:30:31,240
Speaker 1: often mixed images with good and bad associations. So that's

495
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:33,440
Speaker 1: the balance. It's like, you know, the good entities the

496
00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:37,760
Speaker 1: bad entities finding balance. Then we have the transformative phase

497
00:30:37,840 --> 00:30:42,000
Speaker 1: during the fourteenth through eleventh centuries BCE, the human centric

498
00:30:42,080 --> 00:30:45,280
Speaker 1: imagery of the Old Babylonian period gives way to mostly

499
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:50,520
Speaker 1: animal headed hybrids, and then finally we get the demonic phase.

500
00:30:50,600 --> 00:30:53,040
Speaker 1: And as the name implies, this is the period during

501
00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:56,840
Speaker 1: which quote individual evil demons were depicted in their full

502
00:30:56,960 --> 00:31:02,280
Speaker 1: horror in Neo Assyrian and Neo Babylonian art. And it's

503
00:31:02,320 --> 00:31:05,040
Speaker 1: interesting too that they point out that this demonic phase

504
00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:07,800
Speaker 1: lines up with the emergence of a new first millennium

505
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:14,080
Speaker 1: BCE theological model, that of a demonically populated hell. This

506
00:31:14,200 --> 00:31:17,880
Speaker 1: is of course key the key theological invention because it foreshadows,

507
00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:21,640
Speaker 1: you know, the medieval Christian image of a demonic afterlife.

508
00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:25,480
Speaker 1: It also mirrors the various hell realms of Buddhism and Hinduism,

509
00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:31,360
Speaker 1: and it essentially like adds this entirely different realm to

510
00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:34,680
Speaker 1: one's understanding of the unseen world.

511
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:37,560
Speaker 2: That's right. I mean a lot of modern Christians might

512
00:31:37,600 --> 00:31:39,640
Speaker 2: not remember this, but say, in the Hebrew Bible you

513
00:31:39,640 --> 00:31:43,840
Speaker 2: don't get depictions of a demonically populated hell with tortures

514
00:31:43,600 --> 00:31:48,320
Speaker 2: for the damned. That's not there. That emerges in early

515
00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:49,400
Speaker 2: Christian theology.

516
00:31:49,880 --> 00:31:52,040
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, And I mean, for my money, you can

517
00:31:52,040 --> 00:31:53,640
Speaker 1: throw it out right now. You don't have to keep

518
00:31:53,680 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 1: it if you got it. Now. One question that the

519
00:31:56,440 --> 00:31:59,600
Speaker 1: author's raise here is what made this vision of the

520
00:31:59,640 --> 00:32:03,040
Speaker 1: after life different from that of say, ancient Egyptians. We've

521
00:32:03,040 --> 00:32:06,280
Speaker 1: talked on the show before about the robust vision of

522
00:32:06,320 --> 00:32:12,240
Speaker 1: the afterlife that was modeled in an Egyptian belief, the

523
00:32:12,320 --> 00:32:15,160
Speaker 1: idea that the afterlife is certainly a realm of danger.

524
00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:17,640
Speaker 1: It is not a you know, it's it's not a

525
00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:19,880
Speaker 1: just one big heavenly celebration. There are a lot of

526
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:22,960
Speaker 1: dangers and entities out there, but it's also a realm

527
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:25,959
Speaker 1: of great possibility. So a person of means and power

528
00:32:26,520 --> 00:32:30,080
Speaker 1: and magical ability could potentially translate all of that over

529
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:34,120
Speaker 1: into their next life in the field of reeds, that's right.

530
00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:37,040
Speaker 2: So even among ancient cultures that had that had a

531
00:32:37,080 --> 00:32:40,120
Speaker 2: religious idea of an afterlife, of some sort of place

532
00:32:40,160 --> 00:32:42,480
Speaker 2: you go after death, there's there's a lot of diversity

533
00:32:42,520 --> 00:32:45,080
Speaker 2: in what that afterlife looks like and what you do there.

534
00:32:45,680 --> 00:32:47,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, now, I think there's probably still a lot of

535
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:51,640
Speaker 1: room to get into the nuances of either you know,

536
00:32:51,840 --> 00:32:55,920
Speaker 1: broad regional religious traditions. But Black and Green contend that

537
00:32:56,040 --> 00:33:00,400
Speaker 1: in general, we see a strong sense of mesobate Hamian

538
00:33:00,480 --> 00:33:05,080
Speaker 1: pessimism in regards to the afterlife. According to Black and Green,

539
00:33:05,120 --> 00:33:08,680
Speaker 1: the region in general at this time was one of

540
00:33:08,840 --> 00:33:12,880
Speaker 1: agriculture and clay, but little else in abundance, certainly for

541
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:16,800
Speaker 1: the common denizen of this region. So almost every aspect

542
00:33:16,840 --> 00:33:20,240
Speaker 1: of life they write was likely quite harsh compared to

543
00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:24,040
Speaker 1: ancient Egypt, and this colored an equally harsh view of

544
00:33:24,080 --> 00:33:29,000
Speaker 1: the afterlife. So immortality, that's for the gods. Mortal man, however,

545
00:33:29,280 --> 00:33:32,160
Speaker 1: is just doomed to die, passing on only into a

546
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:35,720
Speaker 1: shadowy realm, where in Sumerian traditions the shades of the

547
00:33:35,760 --> 00:33:40,640
Speaker 1: dead consume only the ashes, and in Assyria Babylonian traditions,

548
00:33:40,800 --> 00:33:44,480
Speaker 1: the grim afterlife is the domain of demons and monsters.

549
00:33:45,160 --> 00:33:48,040
Speaker 1: Black and Green right that eventually traditions and belief systems

550
00:33:48,120 --> 00:33:51,880
Speaker 1: developed by which you can affect your arrival and status

551
00:33:51,920 --> 00:33:54,360
Speaker 1: in the afterlife or that of a loved one via

552
00:33:54,440 --> 00:33:59,280
Speaker 1: proper burial, But earlier on it was probably either based

553
00:33:59,280 --> 00:34:01,560
Speaker 1: around a cult of the dead, via which you might

554
00:34:01,800 --> 00:34:04,880
Speaker 1: you know, communicate with deceased family members, or it was

555
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:07,600
Speaker 1: just a means of preventing their spirits from haunting you

556
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:12,120
Speaker 1: after they've died. But yeah, especially early on, there's not

557
00:34:12,200 --> 00:34:14,840
Speaker 1: this sense that, oh, we need to talk to Grandma

558
00:34:15,040 --> 00:34:18,480
Speaker 1: or communicate with Grandma, or have offerings for Grandma, just

559
00:34:18,520 --> 00:34:21,200
Speaker 1: make sure she's doing okay. Like, no, there's not really

560
00:34:21,239 --> 00:34:24,440
Speaker 1: any doing okay. This afterlife. It's a world of ash

561
00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:27,600
Speaker 1: and shadow. But we don't want Grandma to come back

562
00:34:27,600 --> 00:34:30,319
Speaker 1: from the realm of ash and shadow and start haunting us.

563
00:34:30,400 --> 00:34:33,080
Speaker 1: Things are bad enough here. We don't need her here

564
00:34:33,120 --> 00:34:33,560
Speaker 1: as well.

565
00:34:34,080 --> 00:34:36,000
Speaker 2: But at some point you get the idea of, well,

566
00:34:36,040 --> 00:34:38,880
Speaker 2: maybe we could send some food, send some care packages

567
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:42,080
Speaker 2: to Grandma in the afterlife and that might help a

568
00:34:42,120 --> 00:34:43,360
Speaker 2: little bit. Yeah.

569
00:34:43,440 --> 00:34:47,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, So so again we enter this demonic period. We

570
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:52,120
Speaker 1: suddenly have this idea of after life where are there

571
00:34:52,200 --> 00:34:55,640
Speaker 1: may be demons everywhere? And it also comes around the

572
00:34:55,680 --> 00:34:59,840
Speaker 1: same time as new practices such as erecting statues and

573
00:35:00,120 --> 00:35:04,719
Speaker 1: leafs of magically protective beings in palaces and in temples,

574
00:35:04,960 --> 00:35:08,640
Speaker 1: as well as burying clay images of such entities in

575
00:35:08,719 --> 00:35:12,760
Speaker 1: building foundations to protect that building and its occupants against

576
00:35:12,760 --> 00:35:17,400
Speaker 1: demons and disease. They write quote diverse and cultural background

577
00:35:17,480 --> 00:35:21,560
Speaker 1: and original significance. The various gods, demons, and monsters involved

578
00:35:21,560 --> 00:35:24,520
Speaker 1: were brought together into a fairly restricted visual series of

579
00:35:24,600 --> 00:35:26,920
Speaker 1: this time, and for the first time they came to

580
00:35:26,960 --> 00:35:31,440
Speaker 1: be treated as a group in mythological narratives. So, you know,

581
00:35:31,719 --> 00:35:33,080
Speaker 1: demonic avengers assembled.

582
00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:33,799
Speaker 2: I guess.

583
00:35:35,200 --> 00:35:38,320
Speaker 1: Now most of the demons from this period of ancient

584
00:35:38,360 --> 00:35:42,360
Speaker 1: Mesopotamian belief they still in their punishment of mortals and

585
00:35:42,360 --> 00:35:46,399
Speaker 1: their spreading of disease and death. They were mostly still

586
00:35:46,440 --> 00:35:49,600
Speaker 1: doing it at the behest of the greater gods. So

587
00:35:49,640 --> 00:35:51,600
Speaker 1: you can think of them as being still part of

588
00:35:51,640 --> 00:35:55,520
Speaker 1: the system, you know, like that. You don't like what

589
00:35:55,560 --> 00:35:59,200
Speaker 1: they're doing, but they have some right to do it,

590
00:35:59,520 --> 00:36:02,520
Speaker 1: and maybe the ultimate blame lies in how I'm living

591
00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:06,040
Speaker 1: my life or what I'm not doing to protect against

592
00:36:06,080 --> 00:36:06,839
Speaker 1: their offenses.

593
00:36:07,120 --> 00:36:10,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, did I do something to be taken by the

594
00:36:10,120 --> 00:36:13,480
Speaker 2: grip of this demon? And that grip is usually a

595
00:36:13,560 --> 00:36:15,160
Speaker 2: disease of some kind.

596
00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:18,200
Speaker 1: Right, But there do seem to be exceptions to the rule,

597
00:36:18,280 --> 00:36:22,799
Speaker 1: and one exception in particular, and it may be due

598
00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:26,920
Speaker 1: to the fact that some acts of demons and some

599
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:30,520
Speaker 1: events in life are just too horrific to be attributed

600
00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:33,400
Speaker 1: to the gods. And that brings us to the entity

601
00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:37,400
Speaker 1: known as La mache To. So I've looked up lamache

602
00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:40,480
Speaker 1: To in one of my favorite sources for entities like

603
00:36:40,520 --> 00:36:44,759
Speaker 1: this Spirits, Fairies, Lepricauns, and Goblins, and Encyclopedia by folklorist

604
00:36:45,080 --> 00:36:48,880
Speaker 1: Carol Rose, and she describes lamache To as the Babylonian

605
00:36:48,960 --> 00:36:54,520
Speaker 1: demoness of disease, and describes depictions as often being that

606
00:36:54,600 --> 00:36:57,560
Speaker 1: of a woman stripped to the waist suckling a pig

607
00:36:57,600 --> 00:37:00,960
Speaker 1: and a dog, with a comb and a spinning worl

608
00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:05,480
Speaker 1: in each hand, representing the gendered tasks of wife and mother,

609
00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:10,480
Speaker 1: these being the core targets of her wrath because she

610
00:37:10,600 --> 00:37:13,560
Speaker 1: is a demon that attacks pregnant women and new mothers,

611
00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:18,920
Speaker 1: bringing death and disease, particularly to infants. She is a

612
00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:23,640
Speaker 1: daughter of the Sky god, but according to Black and Green,

613
00:37:24,000 --> 00:37:26,920
Speaker 1: she seems to be operating She's held to be operating

614
00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:29,239
Speaker 1: outside of the domain of the gods, so she's not

615
00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:33,080
Speaker 1: doing evil because she has been ordered to. She's doing

616
00:37:33,160 --> 00:37:36,360
Speaker 1: it for her own purposes, perhaps for her own delight,

617
00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:40,040
Speaker 1: Like she's just pure chaotic evil, I guess. Black and

618
00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:43,719
Speaker 1: Green likewise describe her based on depictions as a humanoid

619
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:46,400
Speaker 1: creature with the head of a lion, teeth of a donkey,

620
00:37:46,880 --> 00:37:51,360
Speaker 1: naked human breasts, a hairy body, blood stained hands, long

621
00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:56,080
Speaker 1: fingers and nails, and taloned birdlike feet. Her animal she

622
00:37:56,120 --> 00:37:58,360
Speaker 1: has like a signenture animal, and she rides this animal.

623
00:37:58,360 --> 00:38:02,040
Speaker 1: It is the donkey, and she sometimes holds a snake

624
00:38:02,080 --> 00:38:04,440
Speaker 1: in each hand as well, and she also has a

625
00:38:04,440 --> 00:38:10,120
Speaker 1: boat to travel through the underworld. She's also sometimes depicted

626
00:38:10,160 --> 00:38:14,120
Speaker 1: with donkey ears, as are other entities in Mesopotamian myth

627
00:38:14,520 --> 00:38:17,359
Speaker 1: and it seems less scary it does it does it

628
00:38:17,360 --> 00:38:22,200
Speaker 1: does to us outsiders, and apparently this has this has

629
00:38:22,239 --> 00:38:27,400
Speaker 1: caused various translations to change donkey ears to lion ears

630
00:38:28,280 --> 00:38:30,759
Speaker 1: when when this entity has been taken into other cultures

631
00:38:30,800 --> 00:38:34,480
Speaker 1: and regions. But the authors suspect that at the time

632
00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:37,880
Speaker 1: and to the target audience, it was seen as a

633
00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:41,960
Speaker 1: fitting animal to invoke with such a demon, as the

634
00:38:42,000 --> 00:38:45,040
Speaker 1: wild donkey was held to be swift footed. So I

635
00:38:45,040 --> 00:38:48,200
Speaker 1: guess in the regional context, like what is like the

636
00:38:48,280 --> 00:38:52,279
Speaker 1: fastest animal to traverse a you know, rough terrain, it

637
00:38:52,320 --> 00:38:55,000
Speaker 1: would perhaps be the wild donkey, and therefore it is

638
00:38:55,040 --> 00:38:59,520
Speaker 1: a fitting creature for a swift demon to ride in iconography.

639
00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:03,920
Speaker 2: Okay, now I can see how some of our associations

640
00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:07,680
Speaker 2: with various domestic animals, like whether they could be conceived

641
00:39:07,680 --> 00:39:11,320
Speaker 2: as scary or not. That could be purely cultural because

642
00:39:11,560 --> 00:39:14,160
Speaker 2: remember we did the series about why the goat is

643
00:39:14,200 --> 00:39:17,719
Speaker 2: associated with demons. I can imagine a culture where that

644
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:21,520
Speaker 2: is not a common association, thinking like, what what's scary

645
00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:22,160
Speaker 2: about a goat?

646
00:39:22,560 --> 00:39:25,160
Speaker 1: A goat because they're going to be met goats, like

647
00:39:25,320 --> 00:39:27,040
Speaker 1: they can be real sweet.

648
00:39:27,600 --> 00:39:30,799
Speaker 2: Goats can be cute. Oh yeah, so I think you

649
00:39:30,800 --> 00:39:33,240
Speaker 2: can imagine a similar thing going on with the donkey

650
00:39:33,280 --> 00:39:36,280
Speaker 2: ears there that like, donkey's not scary to us because

651
00:39:36,280 --> 00:39:39,400
Speaker 2: we just don't have the right history of cultural association.

652
00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:42,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, you might even be able to get into what

653
00:39:42,960 --> 00:39:46,279
Speaker 1: sounds are considered funny in English, you know, like the

654
00:39:46,520 --> 00:39:51,719
Speaker 1: like sounds are often funny donkey, monkey, clown, you know.

655
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:55,200
Speaker 1: And you're gonna have a different set of linguistic values

656
00:39:55,239 --> 00:39:57,120
Speaker 1: in a different language and of course in a different time,

657
00:39:57,160 --> 00:39:59,600
Speaker 1: different region and so forth, as well as other factors.

658
00:40:00,200 --> 00:40:03,680
Speaker 1: So again we're talking about La mache Tou, not to

659
00:40:03,760 --> 00:40:08,280
Speaker 1: be confused with La Masu. Lamasu, is a benevolent demon

660
00:40:08,360 --> 00:40:12,520
Speaker 1: often depicted as a winged lion or bull with a

661
00:40:12,600 --> 00:40:17,000
Speaker 1: human head, but no La mache tou is a being

662
00:40:17,040 --> 00:40:21,320
Speaker 1: of intense darkness and one that again is seeming to

663
00:40:21,680 --> 00:40:25,320
Speaker 1: act independently of the gods. She inflicts harm on mortals

664
00:40:25,320 --> 00:40:28,640
Speaker 1: for her own purposes. It's not part of a divinely

665
00:40:28,719 --> 00:40:33,520
Speaker 1: orchestrated punishment system. And so we attribute to her cases

666
00:40:33,520 --> 00:40:37,759
Speaker 1: of miscarriage, cases of infant mortality related illnesses that may

667
00:40:37,760 --> 00:40:42,239
Speaker 1: be affecting pregnant women or new mothers. And it's said

668
00:40:42,280 --> 00:40:44,520
Speaker 1: that what is happening is that she'll slip into a

669
00:40:44,560 --> 00:40:47,680
Speaker 1: woman's room at night, a pregnant woman's room, and touch

670
00:40:47,719 --> 00:40:51,040
Speaker 1: your stomach seven times to kill the child inside her

671
00:40:51,680 --> 00:40:54,160
Speaker 1: other times, and another's telling she just straight up like

672
00:40:54,200 --> 00:40:57,960
Speaker 1: steals children in the night. And she is also sometimes

673
00:40:57,960 --> 00:41:02,560
Speaker 1: depicted as bringing disease to men as well. So she is,

674
00:41:02,600 --> 00:41:06,440
Speaker 1: I guess equal an equal opportunity offender in that department.

675
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:09,000
Speaker 1: So she is an enemy to all mortals, and she

676
00:41:09,120 --> 00:41:13,200
Speaker 1: is an enemy most vitally to not only our generation

677
00:41:13,320 --> 00:41:16,560
Speaker 1: but the next generation. Like she she is like a

678
00:41:16,800 --> 00:41:20,360
Speaker 1: dire threat to the enterprise of humanity.

679
00:41:21,040 --> 00:41:25,759
Speaker 2: So feelings about the Donkey years aside a truly horrifying being.

680
00:41:26,320 --> 00:41:28,640
Speaker 1: Yes, now what are you going to do? How are

681
00:41:28,680 --> 00:41:32,200
Speaker 1: you going to fight an evil like that. Well, this

682
00:41:32,239 --> 00:41:34,480
Speaker 1: is where we come back to Pazuzu.

683
00:41:34,640 --> 00:41:36,440
Speaker 2: Pazuzu our old friend.

684
00:41:36,880 --> 00:41:39,960
Speaker 1: Yes, perhaps the most well known ancient Mesopotamian demon of

685
00:41:40,000 --> 00:41:43,880
Speaker 1: our age due to its invocation in horror cinema and

686
00:41:43,960 --> 00:41:49,440
Speaker 1: horror literature and horror imagery. Pazuzu was an Assyrian in

687
00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:54,799
Speaker 1: Babylonian demon or demonic god of the first millennium BCE. Again,

688
00:41:54,840 --> 00:41:59,640
Speaker 1: you're probably familiar with this striking profile, a humanoid entity.

689
00:42:00,160 --> 00:42:01,680
Speaker 1: It in such a way as to create a sort

690
00:42:01,719 --> 00:42:05,719
Speaker 1: of X shape. It could almost look like he has

691
00:42:06,520 --> 00:42:09,640
Speaker 1: four wings, though I think we're perhaps to see this

692
00:42:09,840 --> 00:42:14,479
Speaker 1: as the upper and lower parts of two wings, but again,

693
00:42:14,520 --> 00:42:18,040
Speaker 1: it kind of creates his X shape. Behind him, he

694
00:42:18,080 --> 00:42:22,480
Speaker 1: has a dog like face, taloned feet, bulging eyes, scaly body,

695
00:42:22,719 --> 00:42:25,680
Speaker 1: and if you look closely, there's also a snake headed

696
00:42:25,719 --> 00:42:29,480
Speaker 1: penis there. He generally has the right hand held up

697
00:42:29,560 --> 00:42:34,160
Speaker 1: as if in pledging something, and the left hand is down,

698
00:42:34,560 --> 00:42:37,960
Speaker 1: and sometimes there's a scorpion's tail as well. So Bazuzu

699
00:42:38,080 --> 00:42:40,200
Speaker 1: is kind of an enigma here because on one hand,

700
00:42:40,520 --> 00:42:43,200
Speaker 1: he was definitely held up to be a malevolent demon

701
00:42:43,239 --> 00:42:46,720
Speaker 1: of the underworld. You know, he is not your friend,

702
00:42:47,200 --> 00:42:50,600
Speaker 1: but he also comes to serve as a potent protector,

703
00:42:51,080 --> 00:42:55,520
Speaker 1: invoked in amulance to protect women against the evil of Lamashtu.

704
00:42:56,200 --> 00:42:59,400
Speaker 1: He has often depicted driving her and her donkey Steed

705
00:42:59,640 --> 00:43:03,320
Speaker 1: back into the underworld, and these images might be displayed

706
00:43:03,320 --> 00:43:06,280
Speaker 1: in the home as a part of a protective plaque.

707
00:43:06,840 --> 00:43:10,400
Speaker 1: And then you also have ambulance of Bazuzu's head that

708
00:43:10,440 --> 00:43:13,440
Speaker 1: could be worn, it seems, by pregnant women. So you

709
00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:17,840
Speaker 1: would actually wear the horrific like dog like uh, you know,

710
00:43:18,040 --> 00:43:23,680
Speaker 1: gorgon face of Bazuzu on your body to keep Lamacheitu

711
00:43:23,719 --> 00:43:25,880
Speaker 1: from getting close to you and reaching out to you

712
00:43:25,960 --> 00:43:28,360
Speaker 1: and touching you seven times with their awful hand.

713
00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:31,719
Speaker 2: That is interesting in a very different kind of association

714
00:43:31,800 --> 00:43:33,520
Speaker 2: than we get in The Exorcist.

715
00:43:33,840 --> 00:43:35,920
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And in a sense, I feel like the

716
00:43:35,960 --> 00:43:39,440
Speaker 1: Exorcist does Bazuzu dirty, where Bazuzu is just an absolute

717
00:43:39,560 --> 00:43:44,160
Speaker 1: enemy of law and order in humanity, uh, where in

718
00:43:44,640 --> 00:43:48,600
Speaker 1: reality I think he's he's more in between. He's more

719
00:43:48,640 --> 00:43:52,040
Speaker 1: of a tweener, you know, he's he's not a complete heel,

720
00:43:52,080 --> 00:43:54,120
Speaker 1: he's not a complete face, but he's you know, kind

721
00:43:54,120 --> 00:43:58,080
Speaker 1: of doing like a semi face turn here. I you know,

722
00:43:58,480 --> 00:44:01,799
Speaker 1: I I s came back to the quote from Dame

723
00:44:01,920 --> 00:44:04,560
Speaker 1: Judy Dench and the Chronicles of Riddick. You know, she says,

724
00:44:04,560 --> 00:44:07,279
Speaker 1: in normal times, evil would be fought by good, but

725
00:44:07,360 --> 00:44:09,839
Speaker 1: in times like these, well it should be fought by

726
00:44:09,880 --> 00:44:11,120
Speaker 1: another kind of evil.

727
00:44:11,719 --> 00:44:14,640
Speaker 2: Oh what's good for the necromonger is good for Thelmashtu.

728
00:44:15,160 --> 00:44:20,360
Speaker 1: Now, bazuzu also protects against pestilential wins, So wins carrying

729
00:44:20,440 --> 00:44:23,800
Speaker 1: pestilence because he is. And I was reading about that.

730
00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:25,759
Speaker 1: I was looking at a number of different sources that

731
00:44:25,760 --> 00:44:28,279
Speaker 1: dealt more specifically with the zuzu, and one I looked

732
00:44:28,320 --> 00:44:34,520
Speaker 1: at is a paper by Maraja Todorovska this title Demonic,

733
00:44:34,600 --> 00:44:39,080
Speaker 1: Hybrididy and Liminality Bazuzu and lamashe Tou. This is from

734
00:44:39,080 --> 00:44:42,759
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. She refers to him as the king

735
00:44:42,760 --> 00:44:45,840
Speaker 1: of evil wins and the ruler over the worst of

736
00:44:45,880 --> 00:44:48,680
Speaker 1: the wind demons, who he can also seem to control

737
00:44:48,760 --> 00:44:50,160
Speaker 1: to some extent. I don't know if he's straight up

738
00:44:50,160 --> 00:44:53,160
Speaker 1: controlling them or he is just like the roughest, toughest

739
00:44:53,160 --> 00:44:55,320
Speaker 1: of the bunch and he can beat them into submission.

740
00:44:55,320 --> 00:44:57,719
Speaker 1: In the same way that like Godzilla is the king

741
00:44:57,760 --> 00:45:01,040
Speaker 1: of monsters, not because there's like a deep tailed hierarchy,

742
00:45:01,239 --> 00:45:03,040
Speaker 1: but because he can whip all the other ones.

743
00:45:03,200 --> 00:45:05,640
Speaker 2: That's right. He's not giving orders to the other monsters.

744
00:45:05,680 --> 00:45:07,840
Speaker 2: He's the monster you call when you got when you

745
00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:09,680
Speaker 2: got a monster messing with your city.

746
00:45:09,840 --> 00:45:12,880
Speaker 1: Right, right. And yet the Godzilla world does line up

747
00:45:12,920 --> 00:45:17,040
Speaker 1: with this rationale as well. So Pazuzu can break the

748
00:45:17,080 --> 00:45:21,520
Speaker 1: wings of dangerous wind demons. And this source also points

749
00:45:21,600 --> 00:45:25,160
Speaker 1: to the likely foreign origins of Pazuzu, given given that

750
00:45:25,239 --> 00:45:28,719
Speaker 1: he was a late introduction to regional beliefs and traditions.

751
00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:31,840
Speaker 1: He doesn't pop up visually till the eighth century BCE,

752
00:45:32,400 --> 00:45:35,080
Speaker 1: and textually he doesn't pop up to the seventh The

753
00:45:35,120 --> 00:45:38,000
Speaker 1: Metropolitan Museum of Art also has some resources about him,

754
00:45:38,040 --> 00:45:40,600
Speaker 1: because they have some images of Pazuzu in their in

755
00:45:40,640 --> 00:45:43,480
Speaker 1: their collection, they point out that he was associated with

756
00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:46,359
Speaker 1: the cold winds that blew into present day i Raq

757
00:45:46,760 --> 00:45:49,880
Speaker 1: from the Zagros mountains on the border with present day Iran,

758
00:45:50,360 --> 00:45:54,799
Speaker 1: although they also stretch into southeastern Turkey. These mountains and

759
00:45:55,360 --> 00:46:00,160
Speaker 1: these winds were thought to carry pestilence. These mountain regions

760
00:46:00,800 --> 00:46:04,320
Speaker 1: had long been inhabited by humans from very early times.

761
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:06,640
Speaker 1: They were also known to have been the Anderthals that

762
00:46:06,760 --> 00:46:12,200
Speaker 1: lived there at one point, and in fact, the earliest

763
00:46:12,360 --> 00:46:15,440
Speaker 1: known human remains in Mesopotamia, or at least at one point,

764
00:46:15,480 --> 00:46:19,680
Speaker 1: the earliest known human remains in Mesopotamia were excavated in

765
00:46:20,000 --> 00:46:23,719
Speaker 1: Shaannadar Cave in the Zagros Mountains. According to Black and

766
00:46:23,760 --> 00:46:27,760
Speaker 1: Green in their nineteen ninety two book, But Yeah, Bazuzu

767
00:46:27,880 --> 00:46:31,919
Speaker 1: is often depicted as climbing mountains in order to engage

768
00:46:32,000 --> 00:46:35,840
Speaker 1: in battle against other demons, particularly other wind demons. But

769
00:46:36,239 --> 00:46:38,799
Speaker 1: who knows what kind of demon Bazuzu might battle. You

770
00:46:38,880 --> 00:46:42,920
Speaker 1: might be able to convince him to do battle against

771
00:46:43,520 --> 00:46:47,319
Speaker 1: an evil demon that is coming after you. Now, it's

772
00:46:47,320 --> 00:46:50,080
Speaker 1: interesting to note that when we look at some of

773
00:46:50,080 --> 00:46:52,839
Speaker 1: these Pazuzu amulets, but you know that would be worn

774
00:46:52,880 --> 00:46:56,000
Speaker 1: by a pregnant woman that has the face of Bazuzu,

775
00:46:56,400 --> 00:47:00,000
Speaker 1: and it's all about keeping La Mashetu away from you.

776
00:47:00,719 --> 00:47:04,160
Speaker 1: If you flip them over, you would see that they

777
00:47:04,200 --> 00:47:07,720
Speaker 1: would also have inscriptions of like straight up benevolent gods

778
00:47:07,760 --> 00:47:10,680
Speaker 1: on the back, the side that's facing you, that's touching

779
00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:15,480
Speaker 1: your chest, perhaps because again Pazuzu is not your friend.

780
00:47:15,560 --> 00:47:20,240
Speaker 1: He is a very dangerous wind demon, you know, master

781
00:47:20,480 --> 00:47:23,480
Speaker 1: of evil winds, and at the end of the day,

782
00:47:23,520 --> 00:47:25,239
Speaker 1: he's not something you want to mess with. You don't

783
00:47:25,280 --> 00:47:28,319
Speaker 1: want his attention to fall back on you. And so

784
00:47:28,480 --> 00:47:30,840
Speaker 1: you know, it's like you want to keep the face

785
00:47:30,880 --> 00:47:33,719
Speaker 1: of that ambulant pointing out to where your enemy may

786
00:47:33,960 --> 00:47:36,080
Speaker 1: may come from, but you don't want it looking in

787
00:47:36,120 --> 00:47:38,920
Speaker 1: at you. You don't want to somehow manifest his rage

788
00:47:38,960 --> 00:47:39,239
Speaker 1: at you.

789
00:47:39,840 --> 00:47:41,360
Speaker 2: M Yeah, that's interesting.

790
00:47:42,000 --> 00:47:44,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fascinating, and it's something I think that may

791
00:47:44,520 --> 00:47:46,640
Speaker 1: feel foreign to people who are more used to the

792
00:47:46,640 --> 00:47:50,399
Speaker 1: trappings of a monotheistic religion. You know, the idea that, yeah,

793
00:47:50,440 --> 00:47:53,520
Speaker 1: you can turn to a dangerous entity or potentially dangerous entity,

794
00:47:54,440 --> 00:47:57,560
Speaker 1: one that's not a typical ally of human beings in

795
00:47:57,640 --> 00:48:01,319
Speaker 1: order to deal with certain evil, supernatural threats, you know

796
00:48:01,800 --> 00:48:04,759
Speaker 1: you can is essentially it's like almost like hiring a

797
00:48:04,800 --> 00:48:09,240
Speaker 1: bounty hunter in the Star Wars universe, Like, yeah, Pazuzu,

798
00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:11,120
Speaker 1: you know he can do this job for you, But

799
00:48:11,440 --> 00:48:13,719
Speaker 1: you know you're making a deal with a ultimately a

800
00:48:13,719 --> 00:48:15,839
Speaker 1: pretty dangerous and unsavory character.

801
00:48:15,960 --> 00:48:16,920
Speaker 2: So you gotta be careful.

802
00:48:17,200 --> 00:48:18,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, but at least he's not the Empire, you know.

803
00:48:19,760 --> 00:48:22,080
Speaker 1: So again, you know, I can't help but think Pazuzu

804
00:48:22,280 --> 00:48:26,640
Speaker 1: is done dirty to a certain extent in the Exorcist.

805
00:48:26,680 --> 00:48:30,480
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know. I'm not prepared to do

806
00:48:30,520 --> 00:48:33,400
Speaker 1: like a full analysis of how Pazuzu would behave in

807
00:48:33,480 --> 00:48:36,719
Speaker 1: the Exorcist and or of another demon would be more

808
00:48:36,760 --> 00:48:40,120
Speaker 1: fitting for the role. But but yeah, it seems like

809
00:48:41,440 --> 00:48:46,040
Speaker 1: if you knew how to manage your use of Pazuzu

810
00:48:46,120 --> 00:48:49,520
Speaker 1: and your invocation of Pazuzu, you could very much use

811
00:48:49,600 --> 00:48:50,680
Speaker 1: him to protect.

812
00:48:50,280 --> 00:48:55,200
Speaker 2: Yourself if one were forced to try to reconcile the

813
00:48:55,280 --> 00:48:58,279
Speaker 2: canon here. I think what you can maybe say is

814
00:48:58,320 --> 00:49:01,960
Speaker 2: that in within the world of the Exorcist, it's actually

815
00:49:02,080 --> 00:49:05,520
Speaker 2: just a separate Christian demon that is taking on the

816
00:49:05,600 --> 00:49:08,120
Speaker 2: image and name of Pazuzu. Is just saying like, I

817
00:49:08,200 --> 00:49:09,680
Speaker 2: assume this form.

818
00:49:09,920 --> 00:49:13,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, because otherwise you'd be tempted to say, well, actually,

819
00:49:13,719 --> 00:49:16,640
Speaker 1: the god that they are calling on should be Pazuzu.

820
00:49:16,840 --> 00:49:19,840
Speaker 1: The demon and the entity they're trying to drive away

821
00:49:20,120 --> 00:49:23,759
Speaker 1: should be a Lamache to who is ultimately here not

822
00:49:23,840 --> 00:49:26,840
Speaker 1: attacking a baby or a pregnant woman, but is at

823
00:49:26,920 --> 00:49:29,719
Speaker 1: least attacking like a young girl, which is maybe not

824
00:49:29,920 --> 00:49:34,239
Speaker 1: too far away from her usual targets of aggression.

825
00:49:34,840 --> 00:49:37,279
Speaker 2: Okay, well, I think that probably marks the end of

826
00:49:37,320 --> 00:49:39,600
Speaker 2: our first part here, but we're going to be back

827
00:49:39,600 --> 00:49:43,400
Speaker 2: to talk about some more demons and frightening entities of

828
00:49:43,560 --> 00:49:46,839
Speaker 2: ancient Mesopotamian religions in the next episode.

829
00:49:47,320 --> 00:49:51,240
Speaker 1: That's right, because there are more demons, there are more gods,

830
00:49:51,360 --> 00:49:55,640
Speaker 1: there are more strange monster like creatures, so we're going

831
00:49:55,680 --> 00:49:58,880
Speaker 1: to get into it in the next episode. In the meantime,

832
00:49:58,920 --> 00:50:00,719
Speaker 1: we'll just remind you that to Blow Your Mind is

833
00:50:00,760 --> 00:50:03,600
Speaker 1: primarily a science and culture podcast of core episodes on

834
00:50:03,680 --> 00:50:08,320
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursdays, short form episodes on Wednesdays and on Fridays.

835
00:50:08,400 --> 00:50:10,719
Speaker 1: We set aside most series concerns to just talk about

836
00:50:10,719 --> 00:50:14,080
Speaker 1: a weird film on Weird House Cinema, And of course

837
00:50:14,560 --> 00:50:17,960
Speaker 1: this month everything is Halloween themed. Weird House is Halloween themed,

838
00:50:18,560 --> 00:50:22,520
Speaker 1: our core episodes are Halloween themed, so we hope everybody's

839
00:50:22,600 --> 00:50:25,480
Speaker 1: enjoying the celebration. Will also remind you, hey, if you're

840
00:50:25,520 --> 00:50:30,520
Speaker 1: on Instagram, look up follow us. We're STBYM podcast on Instagram,

841
00:50:30,560 --> 00:50:32,720
Speaker 1: and that's one way to keep up with the episodes

842
00:50:32,760 --> 00:50:35,880
Speaker 1: as they come out. Let's see. Also, yeah, if you

843
00:50:35,880 --> 00:50:37,600
Speaker 1: go to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com, that

844
00:50:37,640 --> 00:50:41,160
Speaker 1: should lead you over to the iheartpage for our episodes,

845
00:50:41,360 --> 00:50:43,840
Speaker 1: and there's actually a little tab there for our store

846
00:50:44,000 --> 00:50:46,040
Speaker 1: if you want to go check that out. We did

847
00:50:46,040 --> 00:50:50,680
Speaker 1: a Halloween T shirt last year and it's pretty fun,

848
00:50:50,719 --> 00:50:52,640
Speaker 1: has a lot of like occult symbols on it and

849
00:50:52,680 --> 00:50:54,879
Speaker 1: so forth, and you can get other merchs there. It's

850
00:50:54,920 --> 00:50:56,399
Speaker 1: just for fun. Don't feel like you've got to buy

851
00:50:56,400 --> 00:50:59,279
Speaker 1: anything to support us. But if you enjoy the show

852
00:50:59,320 --> 00:51:01,120
Speaker 1: and you're like, hey, need a new T shirt, well

853
00:51:01,320 --> 00:51:02,439
Speaker 1: we've got options.

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00:51:02,719 --> 00:51:06,719
Speaker 2: Huge things as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

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Speaker 2: If you would like to get in touch with us

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Speaker 2: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

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Speaker 2: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

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Speaker 2: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

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Speaker 2: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

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Speaker 2: production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,

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Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening

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Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.