This article discusses magic and divination in ancient Mesopotamia and how these topics intertwined with medicine and religion at that time. In this context, magic can refer to the supernatural causes and explanations that these early civilizations had for different life events or natural disasters. To overcome these challenges in life, they developed rituals and practices that we now call magic, although they are not necessarily witchcraft. The number of tablets and artifacts that reference these topics shows how common these beliefs were and how they influenced people's daily lives, their culture, their different roles and jobs within society, and their decision-making. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Evidence shows that ancient Mesopotamians believed that different gods/goddesses and mythical creatures were responsible for different aspects of life and natural phenomena, because the true reasons behind them were unknown at the time. To protect themselves from undesirable circumstances, they tried to predict the future or please the gods and repel evil. This led to the use of different types of magic to solve their problems, such as diseases and natural disasters. An example of this is the use of some objects such as stones and figurines in medicine. Clear evidence of this is a cuneiform tablet dated to the mid to late 1st millennium BC (currently housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art), which shows a list of hundreds of stones used to treat or prevent various medical conditions due to the effects magic that was believed to be associated with them. Based on cuneiform evidence, medical healers had existed in Mesopotamia since the mid-3rd millennium BC. At that time, all illnesses were believed to be caused by supernatural powers such as gods, goddesses, ghosts, demons, etc. Therefore, the treatments they sought were designed to please the gods or repel evil spirits. These methods were performed by healers, who were mainly of three types: barû (seers) who practiced medicine through divination, âshipu (exorcists) who dealt with illnesses believed to be caused by ghosts, and asû (healing priests) who took care of the patients. Evidence of the involvement of magic in medicine is the Maqlû series, which translates to “Burning”. This is a description of an anti-witchcraft ceremony, held to help a patient regain health. The ceremony took place in several divisions and consisted of burning figurines of an anonymous witch, fumigation, washing patients on witch figurines, etc. This could also be considered a religious rite as the participants hoped that by burning the figurines representing the witch, they could gain the attention and mercy of the gods, who would be able to cure the patient and protect the family and others from the fall victim to the disease. Evidence from Mesopotamian prescriptions shows that they believed ghosts were responsible for a variety of physical and mental problems. These illnesses and health problems range from mild problems such as ringing in the ears and headaches to digestive problems or even stroke. Furthermore, mental problems such as depression were believed to be caused by ghosts. Many of the symptoms were also considered to be directly related to how the ghost died, for example if the patient had difficulty breathing, the ghost plaguing him was assumed to have drowned or suffocated. For each of the problems a specific prescription was given which consisted of a recitation addressed to a god ofrelevant power, or specific actions to take to chase away the ghost, such as offers of food and drink. Most gods and goddesses were believed to have healing powers, but "Ninib" and "Gula" were considered deities of healing. According to Reteif (2007), people who had healing roles within society were generally very respectable and had different ranks based on their importance. The role was so significant that royal healers in the Assyrian Empire even had to take an oath. Considering all this, it is clear how medicine has been influenced by the theocratic state, priestly brotherhoods, and the religious beliefs of the public. A topic that also falls under the broad term of magic in ancient Mesopotamia is divination. Mesopotamian temples and kings' personal fortune-tellers sought to predict the future and avoid harm through divination and astrology. One issue worth noting is that these prophecies were usually used by kings and upper classes within society, and people of the lower classes were not involved in this type of magic on a daily basis, although they participated in magical and religious rituals. The influence of divinations and prophecies is evident when we see that Mesopotamian kings consulted their diviners and priests before making important decisions. For example, if the king was planning to invade a neighboring state, he would ask his diviners whether the gods approve of his decision, so that he can be sure that he is not angering the gods with his actions. Then he would make the decision based on the answer, because if the gods were not happy with the king's invasion plan, they could turn events against him and bring about his defeat. This shows how divination was heavily based on religious beliefs and gods. Assyrian divination could be divided into two categories of “omina oblativa” and “omina impetrative” which, as Cryer (1994) describes, are “that simply present themselves to the attention of the observer” and “those that the observer himself provokes” respectively. Examples of “Omina oblivata” are lunar eclipses and any natural phenomenon, which are events that occurred independently of man and were observed by diviners. On the other hand, the "Omina impetrative" were actions undertaken by diviners and priests to obtain prophecies and avoid harm, which could include omen sacrifices, as well as offerings to the gods to prevent the consequences of their wrath and predicted disasters through extispice, where an animal would be purified during a ceremony and then slaughtered in specific ways. An autopsy would then be performed and certain organs, such as the liver, would be inspected and marked by diviners, which would then be used to predict different things. , such as the weather, current or upcoming health problems, and political events. Sometimes, if the results obtained from the predictions were not desirable, they repeated the rituals and extipies until they obtained results in their favor, especially those of the king. This may perhaps mean that they had no clear line of reasoning behind these forms of magic, other than the hope that the gods would change their minds after more and more sacrifices. These animal sacrifices also suggest that this type of magic and divination were mostly exclusive to the upper classes of society, because animals such as sheep were expensive and the lower classes could not afford to sacrifice them. Evidence from the ancient Babylonian period shows that this was a common practice for diviners of kings as they wrote regular reports based on omens, stating the observation.