Purity, Danger, and Demons

In the Temple of Miriam’s Discord chat we’ve been talking about demons. The night before the chat, Dr. Jeremy Weiss hosted a social on Zoom where we discussed demonology in the history of Jewish magic. It turns out that early magical proscriptions against demonic infection — which included a lot of cleanliness and purity customs — were precursors to prescriptions against germs and infection. Illnesses that took people down in the 12th Century were attributed to demonic possession; the same illnesses now, we know, are caused by infectious agents like viruses and bacteria. The purity rituals and anti-demonic parts of Jewish magical history turned out to be pretty handy against getting sick. Dr. Weiss quipped that it explained why so many physicians are Jewish (including himself) and that historically, the line between medicine and magic has always been messy — in the best possible way.

Cool, right? Well, in the chat OnyxRose was ruminating on how these notions of being sick/assailed by demons has come down today into notions of whether someone is “good” or “bad”, “holy” or “evil”. Musing on what she said was a superimposition of science and the occult that made the concepts clearer (which I sure like), she noted how often inexplicably bad situations are attributed to sin — which is being unclean, being unrighteous, being sick.

My anthropology theory antenna went up. Anyone who has read Mary Douglas’s Purity and Danger knows there is nothing difficult or strange about that overlap. I added that these notions of cleanliness and impurity, and all the cultural categories around them, are explained in her classic book. Part of cultural anthro canon — and brilliant — Douglas makes the argument that what helps cultures either hang together or split asunder are notions of what is clean/healthy/pure/sacred/safe versus dirty/sick/impure/profane/dangerous. All cultures have these categories, but they are expressed and defined differently from culture to culture. Also, like the demons-to-germs example, these categories can conflate.

For example, if you’ve ever been confused by why people think they are protected from COVID-19 because the “blood of Jesus” is on them, you have encountered a classic example of these conflated categories. White supremacists’ obsession with purity is the same thing. For me, Douglas’s argument is the most sensible explanation for the creation and persistence of human cultures and for their divisions. It’s still visible today.

It also gives us pause when we hear that, say, a person in Sierra Leone prays and washes with salt water to keep ebola away. They aren’t stupid, or ignorant — there’s a conflation of cleanliness categories going on. We have our conflations too; like when someone says XYZ people move into the neighborhood the neighborhood goes bad somehow.

So demons to germs? Not a surprise. Brilliant. And accidentally useful.

Well, the friends in the chat thought this was interesting and useful. I joked that it was one of those books I read in grad school and thought, I had it all figured out.. which got a big LOL. (It is a chat after all.) Elegant in its simplicity, but so evident on observation.

Allaya shared that contemplating the notion of revulsion and the “uncanny valley” may tie in with this theory. I think she’s on to something there; notions of deformity and ugliness fall into these categories as well, which is why many cultures still fear the contagion of the deformed and ugly — and how those categories really are troubling, but pervasive — again, we are not free from it in our own culture.

OnyxRose piped back in with Biblical verses (like I Peter 11:6 referencing Leviticus) and other references to God not allowing disabled men to serve as priests or Levites in the Tabernacle, and the focus on purifying and becoming clean and without sin. She also suggested the New Age notions of “higher energies” making you purer and immune to misfortune, whereas people in misfortune must have “lower energy” somehow.

She added that despite all this, nowhere does it say that this should make a person self-righteous and judgmental toward another. I agreed; we all know that holier-than-thou attitude is a defense mechanism. But it also shows that “purity” in that context is fragile, weak, and easily destroyed in the presence of “impurity”. It’s why people used to come into the occult shop I used to work at wanting to buy metaphysical supplies to protect themselves from the guy down the hall suffering from cancer. (I have to admit, I was initially flummoxed by that one). On the other hand, you hear about gurus and sannyasis who will touch and hug lepers and the highly contagious; their context is that “purity” is so powerful, they can pass theirs on to heal the sick because “impurity” is weak.

Look at how we treat the poor here … and the assumptions made about them in terms of purity in danger that actually influence public policy here in the US…

Here’s where being aware of magic and how it works can help. Historical and cultural magical protective measures (think sacred circles, washing, cleansing, purifying, right actions) do end up being accidentally useful — but they are also value-laden. The proscriptions contained meaning on many levels and created meaning on many levels. Magical thinking isn’t childish or confused – it’s multi layered and many-voiced. Trying to understand these conflated meanings can help us heal not only physical and mental ills, but social and spiritual ones as well…

(Dr. Weiss’s Demonology presentation for Temple of Miriam the Prophetess is here:

Demonology in the Jewish Tradition — Temple of Miriam

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