Hi guest! As you can see, the new Wizard Forums has been revived, and we are glad to have you visiting our site! However, it would be really helpful, both to you and us, if you registered on our website! Registering allows you to see all posts, and make posts yourself, which would be great if you could share your knowledge and opinions with us! You could also make posts to ask questions!
Hey guys I'm kinda new here and was wondering if anyone new much about ašipu practices? It's a really old form of white magick (around 5200 years old) from Sumer and I was thinking that it could be really powerful but I couldn't find any information about how to perform rituals. Any help would be appreciated.
Though I have not until encountered the term "asipu", Mesopotamian magic has always interested me, though my knowledge is sketchy at best. Poking around I see the asipu were priest-magician-doctors. I have an academic book on Babylonian Astral Magic which covers the Sumer period and talks about magical medical practices and exorcisms, incantation bowls and constellations, etc. If I can get time to dig it up, I will try to upload it to the WF library.
Until then, I found this site, which gives a brief overview that might be helpful:
I felt this paragraph most relevant. Mesopotamian Medical Practitioners
By examining the surviving medical tablets it is clear that there were two distinct types of professional medical practitioners in ancient Mesopotamia. The first type of practitioner was the ashipu, in older accounts of Mesopotamian medicine often called a "sorcerer." One of the most important roles of the ashipu was to diagnose the ailment. In the case of internal diseases, this most often meant that the ashipu determined which god or demon was causing the illness. The ashipu also attempted to determine if the disease was the result of some error or sin on the part of the patient. The phrase, "the Hand of..." was used to indicate the divine entity responsible for the ailment in question, who could then be propitiated by the patient. The ashipu could also attempt to cure the patient by means of charms and spells that were designed to entice away or drive out the spirit causing the disease. The ashipu could also refer the patient to a different type of healer called an asu. He was a specialist in herbal remedies, and in older treatments of Mesopotamian medicine was frequently called "physician" because he dealt in what were often classifiable as empirical applications of medication. For example, when treating wounds the asu generally relied on three fundamental techniques: washing, bandaging, and making plasters. All three of these techniques of the asu appear in the world's oldest known medical document (c. 2100 BCE).
But I am wondering if these are the guys who would petition Pazuzu against Lamastu, you know, for the kids.
