The Magic of the Aramaic Incantation Bowls + the Origins of Lilith
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- Опубліковано 6 жов 2024
- The ~2500 known Aramaic Incantation Bowls represent one of the largest collections of ancient magical literature. These bowls were used to repel demonic power, malevolent sorcery and the rampages of disease. Composed in various dialects of Aramaic, the bowls are a treasure of magical wisdom providing us insight into demonology and even the origins and first depictions of Lilith!
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Recommended Readings:
Aramaic Incantation Texts from Nippur - amzn.to/4cjCdUA
archive.org/de...
Amulets and Magic Bowls: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity - amzn.to/3VYVzZG
Magic Spells and Formulae: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity - amzn.to/4bqvRkZ
Corpus of the Aramaic Incantation Bowls - amzn.to/3L0OeSU
A Corpus of Syriac Incantation Bowls: Syriac Magical Texts from Late-Antique Mesopotamia
Aramaic Incantation Bowls in Museum Collections Volume One: The Frau Professor Hilprecht Collection of Babylonian Antiquities, Jena, etc
Aramaic Bowl Spells: Jewish Babylonian Aramaic Bowls Volume One
Aramaic Magic Bowls in the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin
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New to Studying Esotericism? Check out my Reading Guide here - docs.google.com/document/d/1caKNlW7sogEF7lAeYNbOQF9pt5O5b70yAXa-icUJO3o/edit?usp=sharing
Rare Occult Books - www.esotericaoccultbooks.com/
Every night, about 5-10 minutes after I turn out the lights, one of my cats walks throughout the house loudly singing an ancient incantation. This was initially quite annoying, but the lack of demons and evil spirits in the house can't be denied.
😊
I literally read all the way thru that thinking it was something serious for some reason 😂🙄
of course, cats were discovered by the Egyptians to be a powerful ward against evil spirits.
@@billysharp2242 may I ask why are you here if you thought that wasn't serious?
Is THAT what my cat is doing? 🤣
I really like the thinking here. If the demon is bothering you, this bowl will trap them on their way up and they will be forced to read your divorce command. Feels like serving papers.
@@ashleydewing1420 not so much getting rid of but mibs divorcing an old god
Trap them under the bowl like a spider
I was wondering why the bowls would be buried upside down. Trapping the demons on their way up from the underworld sounds like a logical reason to me.
@@pithicus52or, perhaps like trapping a mouse under a bowl? Or a modem house or wall? The lack of literature about the bowls in. Is singularly frustrating, especially since there is quite so many of the bowls.
@@mysteriousdeath14400 Basically, if you can have a theory on why they're on a bowl, it's probably been said 😅 From hydromancy (unlikely), traps, relative abundance/cheapness, the metaphorical relationship of "overturning" sorceries, older traditions about placing huge jars over bodies - there are quite a few theories, and no reason to suggest that they were only used for one reason given the length of time they were used and given their geographical spread!
I would love a coffee mug with a nice incantation spiraling down... towards the Brill sigil on the bottom
Then make it - at first it will be awful, but a few tries, and you'll be amazed at what happens!
@@SolveEtCoagula93 pottery has got to be on the top ten of most expensive hobbies... independent ceramic artists don't just charge big prices for fun, they're probably struggling to break even despite selling €50 mugs. Making your own mug, let alone one that's safe to drink out of, is an insane idea. It would be more realistic to save up a couple hundred to commission this from a ceramics artist instead.
"Ma! Why am I so ugly?"
"It's the demons' fault, honey."
I know they’re supposed to be fearsome demon, but those figures are darn cute.
Ancient Chibis
Yes, I do agree with you, they are very wickedly ace cute, indeed. 😈👿👾😈👻👻
Love this topic. Artifacts like this really give us a look at what real, common people - as opposed to kings and generals - were concerned with in their day to day lives. It's a wonderful glimpse into cultures that are otherwise lost.
Also, as a military veteran, the comment about US foreign policy in Iraq got a laugh out of me, so thank you.
The women in my weekly bible study often lament that there are not more womens' voices represented in the scripture we study (at least that we know of). I am going to suggest they watch your video. I am excited about the possibility that the unheard voices and concerns of women can be heard across time on these bowls. Thank you for this fascinating video Justin.
Dr Sledge has a number of wonderful stories / histories on women in religion through the ages. Look through his playlist
I played Vampire: The Masquerade as a teenager. The more modern Lilith myth is a part of the game's lore. It's funny how myths like that go through so many incarnations over thousands of years, and we're still talking about them.
Not just talking about, but actively creating new iterations, even if only for entertainment.
@@samueleborn9909 One of the latest being Diablo IV (video game) where Lilith is the main antagonist, sans the wild hair, fyi the trailer is not for the squeamish.
The demonic absolutely has a strong presence in gaming, it's found an accepting community of young impressionable minds, plus older nerds and manchilds.
Plus me, I fit in somewhere..
Thats such a good game
@@Michael_Dirks does this have the sound track done by a famous female artist and she also features as Lilith in her music video?
This reminds me of Witch Bottles and Witches' Marks on buildings. Both were often placed by doors and windows and were Folk Magic, not well attested in elite magic.
For all Hebrew readers in here, I'd like to recommend "Harashta" חרשתא which is a new urban fantasy epic that revolves around incantation bowls and ancient demonology. I really hope it would be translated to English, it's a very good book
That sounds so interesting! I'd wish actual magic was more used in fiction, where it should belong.
Some of the demon drawings remind me a bit of Where the Wild Things Are. I know you’ve mentioned them on the channel before but I always think these protective bowls are fascinating. Thank you Dr. Sledge!
that's because those are also demons.
This kind of content makes the world a better place!
I love the idea of there just being some dude on the corner of the market that's just like, "What? What's troubling you? You got a cold? Yeah, I got a bowl for that." like some sort of corner pharmacist.
i love the glimpse these mundane-turned-magical objects give us into an unofficial and undocumented at the time religious practice from within the actual homes of people. I learned about such bowls on this channel and am now fascinated by them. thank you for this discovery!
There is a thunderstorm just entering my city(central Mexico), as I am watching this video. Vibes indeed...
This is truly fascinating, the bowls do feel like the household or "hedge" magic practiced by regular folk worldwide, rather than that of sorcerers or priests. I love the idea that they may even be womens magic like the hexes and cures of European witchcraft stories. That makes a lot of sense tbh. Like using salt or brickdust on your doorstep to ward off evil, iron nails on window sills to keep out the Fae, or burying black dogs in the churchyard.
Hey Doc I would like to share a personal story about Incantation Bowls with you. While I was in college and looking for cool stuff to add to one of my stories where one of my protags was a Jewish girl fighting a doom cult, I went around looking for like Jewish demon-fighting technologies and I ran into the Incantation Bowls. I found them quite odd' the idea of using a common household object with inscriptions to somehow contain a malevolent spirit while Catholic priests are still out here banishing Lilith or something with more direct methods.
It kind of opened my eyes a bit to the differences of my Catholic/Filipino upbringing and subsequent view of ghouls, demons, and malevolent spirits and exposed me to kind of an anthropological shift in Judaism from doing it the hard way ala what Josephus described, to the Incantation Bowl tradition, and eventually the slow extinction of the malevolent spirit tradition within the tradition. At least, up until I watched your video on the Dybbuk like 9 years later. And now here you are with a 30 minute video on the exact objects that started me on this strange adventure in the first place.
Thanks for answering questions I never knew I had Doc.
Have read "Womans Lore" by Sarah Clegg a month ago, Incantation Bowls where a big Topic therein, love to have a whole Video on this Topic by my preferred Esotericism Scholar ❤
You just keep painting a picture that illuminates the mind and ravages the ignorance within, this channel has humbled me and made me dig deeper into this process of history...thanks for all the work you put out doc
Another interesting video.
Hmmm, an Incantation Bowl against Brill... Hmmm...
I wonder if these bowls were an inspiration for magic circles in grimoires
When Man observes the seasons around him, the wheel of the agricultural year, the circle of the moon in her seasons and the great cycle of the
Polar Circumcession, he will base his spiritual expression, his magic, upon these perceptions and consequently the circle will arise as a central motif.
This is the closest i get to any weekly religious content. Thank you sir.
This is such an incredible synchronicity. I first learned about incantation bowls from The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd. I had such a strong reaction to the concept, and last night I found a set of 5 bowls at the thrift store that made me think of this, and I bought and cleansed them while thinking of how I wanted to use them. Perfect timing ;)
Keep up the great work, Dr Sledge 👏⚒️
Just reading the divine names and the implied theology from the stuff you put up on screen alone was mind-blowing.
I really hope that as many as possible get photographed and translated, and then shared in some way. This seems like an amazing cultural bundle to lay fallow. And that it's phonetic in many cases makes me think that linguists could probably glean a lot from it about the way those languages were spoken.
Fascinating all around. Keep up the amazing work Dr 🔨
My jaw dropped when you showed your personal incantation bowl!! What a legendary Sledge video
Ah yes the only thing more scary than a naked wild woman: divine bureaucracy
And far more unreasonable!
Another awesome video sir. Thank you. ❤
The part about women being involved with incantaion bowls makes sense, although I also remember Irvine Finkel and Co. talking about how people in Sumerian/Akkadian times assumed all black magicians were women. That seems to have continued on into the Medieval period (Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, Vol. 2), so, that it could influence this bowl artwork. It certainly seemed to be pervasive in the last few hundred years with the "Halloween witch.".
There is enough material in this for a feminist study. But I think that the connection between being female and being evil reflects upon the patriarchal society and it's struggles with the pure female essence that just cannot be tamed and subdued all the time! Because... men are weak? Or... whatever. Female solutions for this patriarchal dominance vary from complying and become strict super moms all the way through the spectrum to being rebellious and rightdown evil! And, of course, the usage of mundane, domestic materials for high end religious/magical ends. Ohh, those inventive women! 😁😮
As a ceramicist, I've always enjoyed these demon bowls. There's a constant conversation or maybe dialectic which occurs in ceramics between the object as function and the object as art.
These bowls occupy a space which is somewhat lost to us now. There are certainly revivalist types but I always considered that kinda larpy. There are definitely "spiritual" people who will go on endlessly about "vessels" and what have you. But you don't really get "bowl as medicine" anymore. Well... not that kinda of bowl at any rate. You might find somebody out there willing to work up some coils and slip and make you a bowl to ward off demons, but there aren't going to be many if any people who take it seriously the way ancient people would have.
I truly love your channel. Your mix of intriguing scholastic presentation and geeky humor makes for such an enjoyable view. Love what you do, keep them coming. 💕
Glad to hear you’re planing on publishing on your bowl. I’m afraid a lot of them were probably bought up by rich people just wanting a curio for decoration.
I purchased a bowl fragment and I treasure it. Thank you for this background!
Still need to get back to you - Sorry about the delay!
A real one? Have you considered giving it to a museum?
Love you Dr. Sledgey purely for the information you provide and organize for us plebeians
A really interesting episode. I really like the bowl, I can just see an irritated scribe scribbling this thinking about the master of house. Perfectly normal curse with the added personal thoughts
I have some incantation bowl fragments available on my website - www.justinsledge.com/shop
I would love to see a joint effort between you and UsefulCharts showing a list of deities and demons and spirits and entities and their transformations through the ages although i suspect it would be a really large list with lots of them sliding back and forth between good and evil.
Anyways, keep up the excellent work. Thank you Justin.
Yes you're absolutely right we would say these are magic porridge bowls
Yes indeed. In the UK we love our porridge bowls. Sometimes we talk of little else but porridge and associated bowls.
@@BeekuBird what's your favourite porridge bowl mate?
@@aarongreatrex-sweeney4954 Wedgwood Rupert Bear porcelain... reminds me of dear old nanny. She had to go after using the gardenias as a toilet, but I still have fond memories.
Thank god someone like this exist as well as let’s talk religion among a few others. But this is hands down the best channel for a genuine scholarly insight into the esoteric of magic, occult, ect. Thank you so much for these!
Very interesting, a topic you don’t hear about much, thanks for another awesome vid!👍😻
Some really cool later examples of these made out of precious metals and stones in the Brooklyn Museum's Persian art collection if anyone wants a chance to see some in real life.
Excited for this one. :) I watched another video about incantation bowls last week, so when I saw Dr Sledge had this one planned for release, I’ve been wiggling in anticipation since!
I wish Amazon sold Aramaic Incantation Bowls!!!
It does sell BRILL volumes on them, if you've got $300+ dollars to throw at them.
They might accidentally trap their own demonic souls and ship them to a customer though 😈.
This is especially fascinating to me since Lilith is a major antagonist of the newest Shin Megami Tensei game. So it's interesting to learn more about her history and how people protected themselves from her.
All the gamers showing up in the comments, I love to see it. I saw someone else mention Vampire: The Masquerade. Both games I need to play but yeah Lilith is a really interesting character. She's also in Diablo I think in the third game mainly? But yeah she's so well known as an inspiration for media and so little known from any other perspective. As far as religion goes she doesn't seem to be a thing really in modern times.
I spent several hundred dollars on one of the BRILL volumes covering these. As a writer, the money was well worth it, as certain choice words used in the Syrian bowls (admittedly, possible artifacts of translation to English) are fodder for the stuff I do.
Make a video about The Instructions of Shuruppak, Eridu Genesis, and Sumerian Wisdom literature
The Undoers and The Plaguers sound like first generation 70s CBGBs era punk bands.
Fascinating as always, Dr. Sledge; thanks.
Nice atmosphere with the rain for you. The incantation bowls are very interesting, thanks for another great video!
🌿 LOVE FROM MISSISSIPPI USA 🇺🇲
For my TTRPG Vogue Minions, inspired by pokémon but set in the middle ages, incantation bowls were an inspiration behind the capture shield; basically a giant incantation bowl that forcefully pacifies monsters for capture!
actual lesson in defence against the dark arts
9:22 a huge storm started while I was watching this. It wasn’t raining at all and now it’s pouring lol. Thanks Dr. Sledge
I do my best ;)
Thank you for covering this topic! I have been so fascinated by incantation bowls for a couple of years now and it's awesome to hear your take on it :D
I can imagine a scenario where it's not about the bowls per se. Rather, you're worried about infant mortality, illness, whatever, and there's a person in town who claims to be able to help. "Yeah, so your problem is you have a severe lilith infestation. For a nominal fee, I'l inscribe a personalized bowl just for you, then we'll have a spooky ceremony where I chant some mysterious words as we bury the bowl in your house." Your neighbors say it worked for them, and what could it hurt? That sort of thing goes on all the time even today, except maybe they're burning sage rather than inscribing bowls. While the person who bought the bowl must have had some trust or respect in the abilities of the practitioner who made it, they weren't necessarily aligned or maybe even aware of the specifics of that practitioner's beliefs.
That one figure you mentioned that soared to be holding a weapon really reminded me of some depictions of Asherah, with the sprouting almond branch.. But these bowls must be 500+ years older? Still, an interesting thought for a protector of the home if she survived underground for that long after the Deuteronomists did their thing.
I would LOVE to know what the cultural aspects of these bowls were! Did the religious men at the time see them as evil but the women, mothers, and new brides secretly put them in the 4 corners of the house without the man of the house consent?
Excellent Material, Thank You very much.
12:52 heh, ancient magical pokeball, basically. gotta bind them all.
actually, seems like a very neat concept for megaten type game set in a medieval fantasy world. prolly better make those incantation balls not from ceramic but from somthn like brass tho.
Good vibes roll.
"Be accessible, or be gone, brill."
Thanks!
Love this channel
“The kind of cartoon drawn by John Wayne Gacy”- I’m dead 😂! This was absolutely fascinating! As a neo pagan and modern witch, I love learning about magical practices from the past as well as the historical context in which they occurred. Your channel is outstanding! True scholarship with a heavy dose of sarcastic wit. Can’t go wrong! Is it known, were the bowls fired prior to or after the inscription before being buried? Was there any kind of glazing or was it just paint? Very curious. Take care.
There's this song about the incantation bowl figures that I heard once or twice
"She's so mean, but I don't care; I love her eyes and her wild, wild hair"
Many thanks to you once again, Dr. Sledge! I do hope you'll follow up this insightful presentation with additional explorations of the Divine Feminine in Western Philosophies and Religions. Aiya Sophia has been much neglected, IMO.
I've seen something about this before, from you maybe? These bowls are some of the most interesting artifacts I've ever heard of, thank you!
I love how these work, nested, with eggshells, it all makes sense to me.
I'd feel like I'd need to live in a fortress before I aquired anything like this, I'm really happy you got one. I hope the rest are in as good of hands as yours! (
I love seeing the more typical example that you have! Please show these in the pictures as well. We're not just interested in the coolest examples with drawings in them. Of course this is across the board. I love the more mundane items.
00:20:20 camera artifact while the psythingy/esper thingy on the top left rotates slowly is funny (forgot its name :D)
Amazing video again 好，很好
you are too cool sir.
Keep up the good work❤
Laughed almost the entire thing 🐇💯🙃🥸😆🤯
Omg the diagnostic free commences ha hahaha ha 😂😅🧿❤️🔥🪶ahhhh your a smart person Mr sledge
Once again thanks Justin :) Mostly commenting to help bump engagement but this is truly fascinating especially as perhaps ancient feminine writings as well as this all helping me in my endless pursuit of understanding the of who, what and why of Lilith(s)?
Why hasn't IKEA produced an incantation bowl dinner set? I guess the medieval (and later) 'Witch Bottles' are Europe's successors to the incantation bowls. I remember reading about pairs of similar but uninscribed bowls buried , one upturned upon the other, under the floors of buildings and containing the skeleton of a snake, from the very ancient Dilmun culture of Bahrain c. 2300 BCE (ref. Looking for Dilmun (1969) by Geoffrey Bibby) Fascinating video yet again Justin.
Life got in the way for a chunk of time. Grateful to hear you again Dr. Justin! 🤩
Love your channel! Wondering if you can read Aramaic?
Justin, you are by far the most seasoned, merciful, and both insightful and inciteful scholars on the subject of religious and arcane esoteric data in my 42+ years. I only wish we could study more together. Please keep yourself and your family safe, healthy, happy, and warm, and if I may ever serve my brother, please reach out. You're amazing, and kept me sane for years now.
Never seen anything like it
Thank you for this overview! I've been curious about these bowls since I first saw a picture of one. The illustrations are SO cool.
thanks for all these
Humanity has learned to sail in the skies, to speak to men on the other side of the planet, to literally move mountains, and after all these countless ages of struggle and progress, "I've been pooping WAY too much lately." is still a concern that we can all share, and connects us to those who came before.
Such a great teaching for me to relax,kick back,and take in.Thankyou.
Smudging your home with sage smoke the keeps thedemons at bay as well as the incantation bowls. Always good to have multiple tools at your disposal when it comes to demons. Nice episode dude. One even a Neanderthal like me could actually follow….somewhat.
best UA-cam channel out there
The anti-Brill bowl at the end was cracking me up. 🥣😂
12:30 “Look, maybe I didn’t say every single little tiny syllable, no. But basically I said them, yeah.” - Ash, _Army of Darkness_
Syro Aramaic and Bardaisan's 'book laws of countries' was my jam when in the academy. Bittersweet memories.
@30:53 No, thank you for putting out accessible scholarly content. On a regular basis, no less. ❤
Really excited to finally get to see a full episode on these
“A thread of human frailty which connects them to us.” Poignant Dazzling! 💜
I liked Roger Zelazny's idea for lynch pins to go with your pdf metaphor.
I love your channel. I learn so much about subjects I adore and it’s been a long time since I have listened to a man break it down. It feels good to remember …. dudes love wild stuff too.♥️
Amazing timing as I've been finally enjoying the Gzella text the past few weeks for bedtime reading. Gorgeous bowl you have there as well, it will be fun to see your paper on it if I heard you correctly ;)
Thank you. Very interesting.
Thank you for bringing this to the attention of the masses❤
a bowl made of glass that you can put over a light source, so that the spell is projected all around. I think that's the next big thing in magic bowl technology. 😊
I wonder how people back then thought to themselves about the “sex” of a demon; like back then did we also notice behaviors related to males and females， and how did people back then think “yeah, this is not a male demons work.”
I'm higher realms we are hermaphoditic. Once you truly merge your masculine & feminine you lose such questioning. In order to travel or to "fly" so to speak in the spirit realms (higher dimensions) You need to really have to understand both sexes as yourself. We are both. We are plasmic light beings.🎉
@@Irredescnt25 that’s not what I meant
@@sergioin3D What did you mean?
I think he means when we call a malevolent force a demon, or demoness, how we determine that their actions, behaviors, temperament are masculine or feminine?
How do these interact with cereal?
Could my incantation bowl of Bircher Muesli release an angry desert spirit?
its strange to hear, though totally understandable to hear, practicAL humans after all, the redundancy of having ward bowls all over the place!
I, too am experiencing the start of a thunderstorm in my neighborhood while watching this! 🙄😊