Star Bathing: Healing Astral Dream Magic of Mesopotamia
Sarah Janes
Writing of Heaven (šitir šame)
To the ancient people of Mesopotamia, the stars were gods. Heavenly influence rained down upon the creatures of Earth and orchestrated the natural forces we are all subject to. The star gods were sometimes benevolent and sometimes cruel, at times bringing sickness or war on ill-winds and at other times delivering divine healing and abundant harvests.
The starry firmament is the writing of heaven (šitir šame), a divine language used to configure the past, present and future. It is inextricably linked with astronomy, celestial omina (precursor of astrology), sorcery, healing magic and divination. It is the first writing of the universe and is considered to be the root of early words relating to the more familiar and terrestrial-type of writing in the Assyrian, Hebrew and Egyptian languages. In its primary sense, ‘write’ conveys the meaning ordered arrangement and in this way can be related to the principle of Ma’at in ancient Egypt and the role of Seshat and Thoth (Djhuty) as divine scribes and architects of the cosmos. The Egyptian term for their hieroglyphs (medu netjer = divine words) perpetuates this concept of language having a heavenly origin. If one can read the heavens, one can make sense of the world.
The king lay down not to sleep, he lay down to dream — not turning back at the door of the dream, not turning back at the door-pivot. To the liar it talks in lies, to the truthful it speaks truth. It can make one man happy, it can make another man sing, but it is the closed tablet-basket of the gods. It is the beautiful bedchamber of Ninlil (Goddess of Destiny), it is the counsellor of Inana (personification of the planet Venus). The multiplier of mankind, the voice of one not alive — Zangara, the god of dreams Lugalbanda in the mountain cave (Sumerian Myth)
Dream Magic
Night-time is the right time for the stars to communicate with humans. Often in Mesopotamian literature, a supplicant is visited by a god in a dream during the night. These visits frequently relate to instructions for rituals, sacrifices and haruspicy to be performed in the morning. Also the chthonic gods of dreaming provided light for dreamers in the underworld. Texts regularly mention the idea of dreaming purposefully (incubation) — of not giving in to sleep, hinting at an expanded hypnagogic or lucid mode of consciousness. Dreams were considered a way to make contact with the dead and the gods. They could be invaded by all sorts of entities, relaying (often coded) portents of the future. It was believed the future was born in the underworld (the Great Below). The divine sun gathered underworld secrets as it travelled through this realm after sunset and before sunrise. This echoes the human dream-state and the often evaporating memory of it upon waking.
Some dreams were very clear and the dreamer experienced them as direct communication with supernatural beings, whilst others, the closed tablet-basket of the gods kind — were an impenetrable archive, requiring interpretation from a wise woman. This classification of dreams persists into the modern dream experience.
Astral Magic
Before the formal development of astrology as a scholarly discipline, poetic texts and stories outlined the manner in which the motion of the stars, planets, sun and moon offered signs and warnings for their observers.
The sort of deterministic astrology that maps out character and destiny, based upon the horoscope of an individual, appears to have been introduced to Mesopotamia and Egypt by the Greeks in the Hellenistic period and may have been developed by them following Indian inspiration. However, it seems likely that Indian and Mesopotamian astral magic and divination both derive from an earlier lineage. I think a parallel in iconography can be seen in the seven Abgal (half-fish, demigods, wisemen) of Sumer and the fish motifs on Harappan pottery and seals of the Indus Valley, where fishes were the sparkling stars in the sea of heaven and the signs for fish and star are the same. Observance of the stars and planets has been an occupation of ancient people for millennia. We will only ever half-know a fraction of human history from the scant traces that eventually find their way into the archaeological record.
The primary function of star-gazing in Mesopotamia was to foresee natural events — lunar eclipses being one of the first documented phenomena with earthly consequences. Sumer was the earliest civilisation known to have city-states. Therefore their success or failure depended upon abundant harvests and the ability to produce and store surplus provisions. The humanoid shapes of the gods were traced over the stars and forces of the Earth. Their relationships, conquests and battles, mythologised the interconnectedness of Heaven and Earth. From agrarian concerns, the deep science and religiosity of celestial observation, the divinisation of the stars and placation of their personifications was born.
Ancient people related more vividly to nature than we tend to do in modern times. This vividness is preserved in those living in indigenous communities and environments, they are still enmeshed within the natural order. But we might imagine ourselves as a bead of dew, suspended on the silken thread of a spider’s web, strung between the awesome wash of heaven and the earthly cycle of birth, sex, death and decay. Within our water, the immaterial and material worlds merge. The blossom of a tree cannot be isolated from cosmic influence anymore than can a human heart.
In this spirit, all material on the planet has a heavenly fingerprint. The astral magic of Mesopotamia acknowledged this prescription, designating auspicious moments for the gathering of herbs for medicine, for making offerings and performing rituals.
Star Bathing
In her 1995 book — Astral Magic in Babylonia, Erica Reiner makes the case for astral irradiation being employed as a way of imbuing material things with ‘star power’. So a charm, amulet or medicine might be bathed in starlight to absorb the heavenly radiance of the Gods of the Night. Prayers to these gods often included the divine names of the rivers too. The waters of Earth reflected the luminous heavens, drawing the divine down into the human domain. These mingled waters of Earth and Heaven therefore not only provided sustenance for the land and its people and the lustral waters for purification rituals, they preserved the very language of the stars and all humans drank of them.
As we consider the dream world as the world in which mortals and gods co-exist and healing contact can occur, we know that to bathe in the heavenly influence of the firmament would be a powerful magic. Through their light, the Gods of the Night communicate with the sleeping patient and vastly increase the efficacy of any appeal, spell, charm or medicine. The stars are a balm in the blanket of the night and act as a most powerful panacea.
Sarah Janes, 9 May, 2021
22sarahjanes22@gmail.com
