Against the Mevakkaltas I
By the glorious name, and authority and power
of Dionysos Agrios I command you to open your mouth
and accept your adjuration and ban, O Mevakkalta-demon,
whatever your name happens to be; it is irrelevant in the end,
for all of you daughters of Mevakkalta, daughter of Zarnay the Lilith,
are alike in your desire to inflict torments on your chosen victims,
and feed off of the pain and misery, the doubt and confusion,
and the spiritual gifts you twist, and stunt, or snuff out entirely.
Although you once outnumbered the Lilim and Mazzikim,
and were more powerful than the Ruḥot and Šedim,
today there are fewer of you than the Nephilim
who survived the great deluge, or the Rephaim
who were slaughtered by King Chedorlaomer and his allies
at the battle of Ašteroṯ Qarnayim. You slink about at night,
attended by the host of evil dreams who are enslaved to you,
and attempt to seduce youths into copulating with you in the hope
of having children of your own. And when you are unsuccessful
in your endeavor because of the curse
laid upon you by Yahō’s wife Ašerah
which made you as ugly on the outside as you are within,
and barren as the stones that once comprised
the impregnable walls of Jericho
until the blast of Joshua’s shofar brought them tumbling down,
you vent your rage on the daughters in the house,
especially if they happen to be the firstborn of the family,
and blessed with beauty, charm, wisdom, piety
and all of the other things your vile race is lacking.
If, by chance, the boy’s seed puts a girl-child in your belly
(for you Mevakkaltas have not produced
male offspring since the days of Balaam)
it will be as feeble and grotesque as its mother.
And so I say to you, Mevakkalta most wretched of demonkind,
remove your tendrils from the minds and bodies
of everyone beneath this roof,
and go far away from this place;
do not bother these fine people,
or anyone of their bloodline again,
or Dionysos, āšipu of the Gods,
will place his seal upon your forehead,
using a spike of iron to keep it in place,
rendering you powerless and breaking your hold
over the evil dreams and other spirits that you command;
he will bind you with iron chains, and with iron shackles, and with iron fetters;
he will sew up the lips of your mouth and of your vagina with iron thread,
so that you can neither curse nor copulate;
he will beat you with iron rods,
and pierce you seventeen times with an iron knife.
Then he will cast you into the deepest depths of Tartaros
to become the plaything of the spirits of the dead Giants,
the wrathful Titans, and the other terrible denizens of Hell’s Hell
who excel even him in the arts of torment,
and no one on Earth or in Heaven
will ever think of you again,
O Mevakkalta-demon whose name,
and desires, and accomplishments
do not matter.
Against the Mevakkaltas II
Guilty of crimes beyond numbering
and full of jealousy and hate,
grim daughter of Mevakkalta,
bringing torment and misery
into the life of the eldest daughter, and the
next and the next down the line, as each is
drained of their vitality, strength, luck and the
surety of the Gods, and spirits, and their dead;
everything you’re scheming will come to naught,
venal creature, for you have made bitter
enemies out of Sabaōth, protector of life,
raging and rampaging Dionysos,
and ʾAšmedai the bringer of death;
not only do they possess awesome power
and cleverness like nothing you have seen before,
but these three individuals have joined together
to stop you from harming NN,
or harming any others after her.
Burning worse than the touch of iron,
like lightning are these charms they’ve handed
over to us to cripple you, Mevakkalta, and
crush you, so that you become prey
to demonic kin far worse than you.
The mighty voces magicae are:
Asarē, Asarou, Achthanou, Saranarchou, Arountē;
and Arara, Charara, Hax, Pax, Adimax;
Asca, Basca, Rastaia, Serc, Cercer, Recercel, Acereba;
and Abachour, Thouchar, Ōsouchar, Sabachar.
IŌ ERBĒTH
IŌ PHARBĒTH
IŌ PAKERBĒTH
IŌ APOMPS
Shin. Shin. Shin.
Against the Mevakkaltas III
O daughters of Mevakkalta, descendants of Zarnay
the dancing-girl and Samaēl the venom of God,
who sit at the crossroads combing out your hair,
who dance on the rooftops, and ride the whirlwinds,
you who revile the male and female Liliths almost as much
as you do Michaēl the Prince of the Heavenly Host;
like a tick gorged on the blood of its victim,
Mevakkalta-demons, you attach yourselves
to family lines, and drain all of the luck, vitality,
and joy that you can from them, targeting especially
the firstborn daughters for whom you have reserved
greater torment than all the others. You bombard
such a girl with whispered deceits and barbed cruelties
until she takes your voice for her own, and internalizes
your messages of smallness, inferiority, disgust
with herself and hatred for all of womankind.
You sexually assault her in her sleep,
and show her far worse things in her dreams,
until she is willing to agree to
or do anything, just to make it stop.
You dangle opportunities in front of her,
only to dash them to the ground
and laugh as they shatter like pottery,
and you sabotage the things she works hardest at
so that she never receives the recognition she deserves,
and has to watch the less worthy surpass her.
You destroy everything she cares for,
and take from her all those whom she loves,
and I won’t even mention what you do
to defenseless infants, and the aged and infirm.
But you will not succeed this time, against
NN, her bloodline, and everyone in her household,
O malice-filled children of Mevakkalta, for your
whole ignoble race are bound, and inscribed,
and banned, and condemned, and excommunicated,
by the Great God Dionysos who fills demonkind
with terror and trembling and a desire to flee
lest they be destroyed by his awful power and fury
whenever he is near. All agreements are dissolved,
any claim you have made on NN is shattered,
and she is set free of your influence, never to be
troubled, or tormented by your wicked kind again.
No Mevakkalta may harm the mind, the soul, the luck,
the flesh, the bones, or the blood of NN, her family,
or her household due to the unbreakable seal
which Dionysos the son of Zeus has placed upon her,
and all of hrr descendants, from now until
the Sun, the Moon, the Planets, and all of the Stars
have fallen from Heaven.
So long as they remain in place, so shall NN
and those related to her have nothing to fear
from you daughters of Mevakkalta.
Against the Mevakkaltas IV
Dionysos was traveling to visit his famed shrine at Tel Šor
near the river of Kišon, when he heard wailing and terrible
shrieks coming from a house on the outskirts of the village
of Šūnēm. He sent his Se’irim, and dancing women, and
the rest of the festive company on ahead to wait for him,
then Dionysos changed his appearance, putting on the
attire of a vagabond āšipu, and approached the house
where he was greeted by a little girl who was playing
with a stick in the dirt, too poor to have any toys of her own.
“Your clothes are funny,” she remarked, “like the clothes
an Aluzinnū.” And Dionysos smiled and said,
“Indeed they are, but they make the Šedim
and Mazzikim afraid, so I like them.”
She nodded and said, “I like them too.”
Dionysos reached into one of the pouches tied to his belt
and retrieved a ball of many colors, a tuft of wool, and a doll
with beautiful black eyes and hair like her own, which he
handed over to her. The girl began to cry, and Dionysos
leaned down, kissed the top of her head, and said, “Where
do these tears come from?” And she answered him, “Your
gifts are so beautiful, and yet ever since my sister and I dug
that jar up out of the earth, our family has known only suffering
and want. First, my father was injured and has not been able to
work. Then my mother was struck down by a quartan fever which
neither the doctors nor the village healing-women could cure,
and she died. My sister’s fiancé was stung by scorpions, and died too.
And now the evil spirit that we released from the jar has taken possession
of my sister, and our father is spending the last of the family’s money on
quacks who are just making things worse. The Gods have abandoned us,
and I am afraid of what further evils lie in store for us.”
Dionysos held her tight, and then stood and entered the accursed house.
Moments later the sham exorcists were tripping over themselves as they fled,
and the shrieks of her sister went silent,
nor did her father make any sounds from his bed.
When the silence had gone on long enough for her curiosity
to get the better of her, the girl crept to the door and peered in,
and she gasped at what she saw. Her sister and father were
cradling each other, both fully recovered, and watching
with horror the scene before them.
The evil spirit was out of her sister, and being held in place by four women
who glowed as bright as the Sun, as the stranger swung a hammer, pounding
iron nail after iron nail into the thing’s pitch-black body.
Nails like a diadem circled her brow;
nails had been driven into her eyes,
and ears, and used to shut her curse-speaking mouth;
there were nails in her breast, and in her stomach,
in her hands, and her knees and her feet. So many nails
that the girl could not count them all.
The stranger set the hammer down and smiled at the girl,
“Do not worry, little one, this Mevakkalta and her sisters
will not trouble your family again. The bonds connecting
this Mevakkalta to your family, NN,
were shattered and cannot be reforged.
Each of these nails is punishment for the wickedness she
has done to you NN, or to someone you love,
and each burns like the fires of Gē-Hīnnōm,
and will continue to do so even if she manages to pluck them out.
This Mevakkalta is going to be cast into the outer darkness,
never to find her way back, and with her will go
all of the pain, and illness, and poverty, and grief that she has loosed
upon your family, NN. Should you ever find yourself in need,
call upon the four Ladies who stand here assisting me, the Ancestral Mothers
who are the iron rods with which ʾĒl Šaddai and Ašerah Queen of Heaven
chastise those who do evil to their people. Never forget: even in the midst
of your suffering you are loved by your Gods and by your dead.
There is no place where they are not. Trust in them, and you will be saved.
Now, enough with sorrows, enough with tears; go and embrace your
sister and your father, who have been restored to you this day.”
First the Mevakkalta and then the stranger disappeared, though the toys
he had gifted the little girl remained, and she carried his message with her
the rest of her days.
The House of Vines 