Mesopotamian Magic, Rites and Rituals of Eridu, Sumerian Anunnaki in Babylonian System

“Through Marduk, the power of Eridu – incantation-prayer – was taught to the scribes of Nabu and the Mardukite Priests, who were taught to attract and compel the ‘gods’ in the name of Marduk, always incanting the word-formula of the highest order: Nabu invoked by way of the name of Marduk; Marduk invoked by way of the name of Enki, Our Father, who in turn would invoke by the name of Anu – and so was born the concept of magical hierarchies, an ideal that was convoluted and obscured when employed later (during the Middle Ages and such), particularly distorted by the Judeo-Christian paradigm as evident in many popular grimoires…”
~ NABU, Joshua Free, The Book of Marduk by Nabu (2010)

This mardukite.com blog is officially excerpted from the Liber-51/52 materials recently released in the NEW mardukite.com exclusive edition of the GATES OF THE NECRONOMICON anthology edited by Joshua Free. These materials are also available as Mesopotamian Religion by Joshua Free or Sumerian Religion II.

Many version of Erudite magic may be found through the Mesopotamian ‘spiritual’ (or ‘magical’) cuneiform texts. The incantation tablets from the ‘Mardukite’ Babylonian Anunnaki tradition, specifically those used and forged by scribe-priests of the Order of Nabu, are invoked from the ‘perspective’ (authority) of NABU – as was the tradition learned verbatim from MARDUK. In both scholarly and esoteric ‘Mardukite’ texts, the ‘Opening Ritual’ of Mardukite magic is derived from the source titled: “The Incantation of Eridu.”

Perhaps the most fundamental ‘formula’ of the magical system in Babylonia, if there is one, goes back to the heart of the system born of the scribe-priests and the figures who brought this system about – NABU and the appropriation of his father, MARDUK as the chief director. This is the spiritual acknowledgment alluded to by the Incantation of Eridu, also known as the ‘Incantation of the Priest of Eridu’ (Eridu being the shrine-home of ENKI), or the ‘Incantation of the Deep‘, which simply refers to another name for the far-away abode of ENKI near the Persian Gulf.

Ceremonial activation of the ‘birthright’ of Anunnaki power sealed in Eridu (and then in Babylon) allows a practitioner to assume the representative form of the “Priest of Eridu,” a title first bestowed
upon MARDUK by ENKI, then passed onto NABU during the solidification and heights of the Babylonian era. The esoteric key in effect here is that the priest conducts the incantations (ceremony) as the embodiment of an intermediary ‘messenger’ deity – the original semantic of the word “invocation” – thereby directing the cosmic (world) order, in essence, first hand.

In short – the magician approaches his deity as himself – a servant priest – and petitions to assume the godform, whereby he continues the ceremony as a divine representation of the god ‘invoked’. An almost identical principle appears within Semitic mysticism and the Judeo-Kabbalah – an excellent example being found in contemporary Catholicism, when the priest ‘assumes the Christ-form‘ to effectively perform a perceived alchemical transmutation on the sacramental bread and wine, conducted as a representative of Jesus on earth, in imitation (dramatic reenactment) of the ‘Last Supper’.

In the ‘Mardukite’ system observed in Babylon, the god being invoked is MARDUK. This is affirmed with the priest’s first utterance of : “It is not I, but Marduk, who speaks the incantation.” And from then on the system is sealed and readied for use by the Mardukite devotee. Consider the lines in this conjuration, adapted from the Mardukite “Conjuration of the Fire God”:

It is not I, but Marduk, Slayer of Serpents, Who summons thee.
It is not I, but Enki, Father of Magicians, Who calls thee here now.

As described, the ritual34 operates as if from the perspective of NABU (speaking for MARDUK). Though variations exist across the opening lines of several Assyrian “exorcisms,” one key tablet example – translated by R.C. Thompson as his “Tablet N” for “Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia” (1903) – relates:

The Priest of E.A. [Enki] am I.
The priest of Damkina [Ninki] am I.
The messenger [Nabu] of Marduk am I.
My spell is the spell of E.A [Enki].
My incantation is the incantation of Marduk.
The ‘magic circle’ of EA [Enki] is in my hand.
The tamarask, in my hand, I hold.

From the modernized Mardukite version:

I am the Priest of Marduk, Son of Our Father, Enki.
I am the Priest of Eridu and the Magician of Babylon.

The Assyrian version continues humbly as follows:

EA [Enki], King of the Deep see me favorably.
I, the magician, am thy slave.
March thou on my right hand, assist me on my left;
Add thy pure spell to mine.
Add thy pure voice to mine.
O god that blesses me, Marduk,
Let me be blessed, wherever my path rests.
Thy power, shall god and man proclaim.
And I too, the magician, thy slave.

Returning to a an older version, transliterated by E.A. Budge for “Babylonian Life & History” (1883), we see a different method used toward petitioning the “younger pantheon” to the side of the priest.

I am the Priest of EA [Enki].
I am the Magician of Eridu.
Shammash [Samas] is before me.
Sin [Nanna] is behind me.
Nergal is at my right hand.
Ninurta is at my left hand.

And to this, the Mardukite version appends:

Anu, above me, King of Heaven.
Enki, below me, King of the Deep.
The power [blood] of Marduk is within me.
It is not I, but Marduk, who performs the incantation.

The priest mystically sheds the ‘mortal spark, even if for a moment, to experience the transcendental magic clad in godhood. Rising on the planes of perceptual awareness – as a god, speaking on behalf of the chief of the pantheon – the priest-magician is now able to influence worldly affairs in the original and most direct magical means known on the planet – a direct interface with the gods as one of their own…