Casting out the fly
From Atlantic Roleplay Wiki
Title: ^Casting out the fly^
Author: Goethe
A picture of a large
curved fly
Flies, we know now, are
imperfect creatures,
generated from
corruption, which they
spread everywhere,
carrying disease and
contaminating foods.
Anyone who has travelled
into the East knows to
what degree they
constitute a true
calamity.
Zoroastian demonology has made the fly a female daemon, the Nasu, embodying impurity, putrefaction and decay, feeding in preference upon the dead.
Nasu may be smitten by corpse eating dogs and birds the beneficent creatures of Ormazd whose glance can cast out daemons.
Expelled by their gaze, the daemon, disguised in the shape of an abominable fly, leaves the corpse. This forms the basis of the Sag-did ceremony which must be performed before anyone can touch the dead.
The worshiper of Mazda must dig three holes into the ground and wash his body with goat urine. Placing his palm upon the lips of the possessed he shall chant "GET OUT!" three times at which time the fly daemon escapes through the lips and lands on the shoulder of the victim. The worshiper must then capture the fly with his left hand and chant the words "Return to your hells and take with you your foul spawn!" By opening the left hand the daemon fly takes off into the night to die and if it had spawned children within the body of the possessed the maggots exit through the nose of the victim to die in the presence of Mazda's worshiper.