Pazuzu.

I am the god Pazuzu, son of the god Hambi, king of the evil wind demons.
Left: Statue made by some Assyrian sculpter. It is a couple of thousands years old.
The statue is currently in the Louvre museum in Paris, France.
Right: Picture drawn by me.

In the first millenium before Christ, The Assyirians believed that Pazuzu was the bringer of the southeast winds, and the south east winds brought plagues and diseases. Diseases the Assyirians had no cure for. If Pazuzu brought pestilance to the land, then hundreds of maybe thousands of people (and animals) would die. Because Pazuzu wanted it so.

Why did people worship a god that brought such evil? I don't know. Maybe all religious people, up to a certain point, worship a god or gods that bring pain and misery and death. People don't like it, but people accept that. Pain and misery and death are all parts of life, and therefore it must be accepted if god, or gods, bring pain and misery and death.

Pazuzu was not all bad. Apart from the destruction he brought, he also protected people against other gods/goddesses/demones, who were even more destructive than Pazuzu himself.
So even Pazuzu was evil, he did offer some protection against even greater evils. People carried holy symbols of Pazuzu for protection.
This duality is symbolized in the pose of the hands/claws: one hand is directed up, symbolizing creation. One hand is directed down, symbolizing destruction.

The Assyrian religion must have been a dark and pessimistic religion, when they believed that the only protection against evil is evil.


Pazuzu is the demon that possesses young Regan MacNeil in the book and film adaptation, The Exorcist.

In the comic book Adèle Blanc-Sec et Le démon de la Tour Eiffel by Jaques Tardi (1976), Adèle's opponents are fanatical followers of Pazuzu. Followers of Pazuzu in Paris in 1912? Sounds weird. But at that time, ancient pagan religions and the supernatural were considered very hip, so it's not that weird.

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Beardless crusaders On prejudice, manhood, and cultural differences in the 11th century.
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These articles are all written by me. These articles are brought to you as useless information, and they pretend to be nothing more than that.
Not everything I state in these articles is nessecarily true. But it is not all untrue either.

Coen de Moor