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Magic and Rituals for the Individual
1 Religious rituals serve to institutionalize individual efforts to establish an interactive link with the divine element. There are two dimensions: the confirmation of the relationship with the divine element and the restoration of order when it is broken.
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Sacrifice
2 Sacrifice is a confirmation of the relationship with the absolute: part of the material world is absorbed by the sphere of the absolute. In Mesopotamia, sacrifices are used by the gods for their enjoyment. In the Bible, God does not need sacrifice and man cannot use it to gain something in return.
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Restoring Order
3 Restoration of order in the Mesopotamian context means to regain the integrity of an individual sinner and the static whole this individual belongs to, and sin is viewed as a mechanical failure that must be put to rights. In the Biblical context, restoration is a gift offered by God, who is the foundation of the universe and has been personally offended by the sin.
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Specific Examples
4 Specific examples include circumcision, marriage, sacred prostitution, magic rituals, pentitential rituals, and rituals surrounding death.
5 In the Biblical world, circumcision marked the official entry of the male individual into a religious community. Mesopotamia lacked this initiation ritual as there was not an analogous religious community.
6 It is not clear if sacred prostitution was practiced in Mesopotamia.
7 Mesopotamian magic intended to cooperate with fate in the restoration of order, not attempt to bend the universe to one’s will through technical skill.
8 An āšipu, or the technician of a spell, functioned as a scribe, liturgist, and exorcist who acted on behalf of a client.
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Magic and Spells
9 The abuse of magic was severely condemned and punished with the death penalty. This witchcraft was viewed as evil, since it aimed at a disruption of harmony.
10 Mesopotamian spells include 1. responses to predictions (obtained through divination); 2. correcting events and conditions, and 3. remedies against external interventions (such as witchcraft).
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The Mythology of Fate
11 Magic can be seen as the cult of the mythology of fate. The gods do not provide remedies, but only act as the executors of rituals which do so. Biblical rituals on the other hand are addressed to God, who established and commanded the ritual.
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Biblical Sacrifice
12 There are no magic rituals in Biblical spirituality because evil is viewed as an internal disposition towards the creator of order, not mechanical dislocation of elements.
13 The Biblical sacrifice system includes four elements: the recognition of sin; the hope of forgiveness; the willingness to do penance; and the acceptance of a redeeming intervention.
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Ritualism
14 No magical ritual was ever proposed to avoid death, and the function of the rituals that face this event serve as much to regulate the survivors’ feelings of pain as to help the deceased in the afterlife.
15 Rituals can provide comfort by affirming that a particular experience is shared and is part of the pattern of the absolute. However, rituals can become an end in themselves and lead to ritualism: an atrophy of the spiritual dimension where the absolute is understood as existing only in the rituals.