Number 7 and Demons
Strongly influenced as were the Jews by the exact division of the duodecimal period between Good and Evil, affirmed by the Persians, they never lost sight of the ultimate supremacy of Jehovah. Though Satan had gradually become a voluntary genius of evil, he still had to receive permission to afflict, as in the case of Job, and during the lifetime of Paul appears to have been still denied that ‘power of death’ which is first asserted by the unknown author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Satan’s especial office was regarded as the infliction of disease. Paul delivers the incestuous Corinthian to Satan ‘for the destruction of the flesh,’ and he also attributed the sickness and death of many to their communicating unworthily. He also recognises his own ‘thorn in the flesh’ as ‘an angel from Satan,’ though meant for his moral advantage.
A penitential Psalm (Assyrian) reads as follows:—
O my Lord! my sins are many, my trespasses are great; and the wrath of the gods has plagued me with disease, and with sickness and sorrow.
This Psalm would hardly be out of place in the English burial-service, which deplores death as a visitation of divine wrath. Wherever such an idea prevails, the natural outcome of it is a belief in demons of disease. In ancient Egypt—following the belief in Ra the Sun, from whose eyes all pleasing things proceeded, and Set, from whose eyes came all noxious things,—from the baleful light of Set’s eyes were born the Seven Hathors, or Fates, whose names are recorded in the Book of the Dead. Mr. Fox Talbot has translated ‘the Song of the Seven Spirits:’—
These demons have a way of herding together; the Assyrian tablets abundantly show that their occupation was manifested by diseases, physical and mental. One prescription runs thus:—
The god (...) shall stand by his bedside:
Those seven evil spirits he shall root out, and shall expel them from his body:
And those seven shall never return to the sick man again!
It is hardly doubtful that these were the seven said to ]have been cast out of Mary Magdalen; for their father Set is Shedîm (devils) of Deut. xxxii. 17, and Shaddai (God) of Gen. xvi. 1. But the fatal Seven turn to the seven fruits that charm away evil influences at parturition in Persia, also the Seven Wise Women of the same country traditionally present on holy occasions. When Ardá Viráf was sent to Paradise by a sacred narcotic to obtain intelligence of the true faith, seven fires were kept burning for seven days around him, and the seven wise women chanted hymns of the Avesta.
The number seven holds an equally high degree of potency in Singhalese demonolatry, which is mainly occupied with diseases. The Capuas or conjurors of that island enumerate 240,000 magic spells, of which all except one are for evil, which implies a tolerably large preponderance of the emergencies in which their countervailing efforts are required by their neighbours. That of course can be easily appreciated by those who have been taught that all human beings are included under a primal curse.
]The words of Micah, ‘Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea,’ are recalled by the legend of these evil spells of Ceylon. The king of Oude came to marry one of seven princesses, all possessing præternatural powers, and questioned each as to her art. Each declared her skill in doing harm, except one who asserted her power to heal all ills which the others could inflict. The king having chosen this one as his bride, the rest were angry, and for revenge collected all the charms in the world, enclosed them in a pumpkin—the only thing that can contain spells without being reduced to ashes—and sent this infernal machine to their sister. It would consume everything for sixteen hundred miles round; but the messenger dropped it in the sea. A god picked it up and presented it to the King of Ceylon, and these, with the healing charm known to his own Queen, make the 240,000 spells known to the Capuas of that island, who have no doubt deified the rescuer of the spells on the same principle that inspires some seaside populations to worship Providence more devoutly on the Sunday after a valuable wreck in their neighbourhood.
The astrological origin of the evils ascribed to the Yakseyo (Demons) of Ceylon, and the horoscope which is a necessary preliminary to any dealing with their influences; the constant recurrence of the number seven, denoting origin with races holding the seven-planet theories of the universe; and the fact that all demons are said, on every Saturday evening, to attend an assemblage called Yaksa Sabawa (Witches’ Sabbath), are facts that may well engage the attention of Comparative Mythologists.20 In Dardistan the evil spirits are called Yatsh] they dwell ‘in the regions of snow,’ and the overthrow of their reign over the country is celebrated at the new moon of Daykio, the month preceding winter.
