Enoch · Jubilees · Qumran · Matthew · the world
The Restless Spirits
An ancient account of spirits with no body: the left-over halves of the Watchers' children. Where the story comes from, which books carry it, how other religions saw the hungry dead, and the words people used to keep them out of the house, the body and the soul.
1 Enoch 6–16 · Genesis 6:1–4
⚡ Where the spirits come from
Tap each stage. Note: these are not God's offspring. Genesis 6 calls the fathers the "sons of God" (bene ha-elohim), meaning divine beings. Enoch calls them the Watchers.
1 Enoch · R.H. Charles translation (1912, public domain)
📕 The Book of Enoch, passage by passage
Open each passage. Then see how Enoch itself deals with the spirits, which is not the way most people expect.
⚖️
The key point. 1 Enoch gives no method for people to drive these spirits out. It allows them to remain until Judgment Day (16:1), and it condemns charms and spells as forbidden knowledge taught by the Watchers. Every human method of expulsion (Noah's prayer, the Qumran songs, Tobit's smoke) comes from later texts building on Enoch.
✦ 6:1–7:6 · The descent on Mount Hermon
- 6:1–6: 200 Watchers, led by Shemihazah, swear an oath together on Mount Hermon in the days of Jared, Enoch's father, to take human wives. They bind themselves with curses so none can back out.
- 6:7: names their twenty chiefs of ten, among them Asael (Azazel), Armaros, Baraqiel and Kokabiel.
- 7:1: they take wives:
"…and they taught them charms and enchantments, and the cutting of roots, and made them acquainted with plants."
1 Enoch 7:1
- 7:2–5: the giants eat everything people produce, then people, then animals, then one another, and drink blood.
- 7:6: "Then the earth laid accusation against the lawless ones."
- 8:1–3: Azazel teaches weapons, metalwork, jewellery and cosmetics. Shemihazah teaches enchantments. Armaros teaches "the resolving of enchantments", meaning counter-spells. In Enoch, magic and anti-magic both come from the fallen Watchers.
✦ 10:4–8 · Raphael binds Azazel and heals the earth
"Bind Azazel hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness: and make an opening in the desert, which is in Dudael, and cast him therein. And place upon him rough and jagged rocks, and cover him with darkness, and let him abide there for ever, and cover his face that he may not see light. And on the day of the great judgement he shall be cast into the fire."
1 Enoch 10:4–6
"And heal the earth which the angels have corrupted."
1 Enoch 10:7
Raphael's name means "God heals". That's why later texts (Tobit, 11Q11, the incantation bowls) call on him by name. In 10:8, "to him ascribe all sin": Azazel becomes the scapegoat, echoing Leviticus 16.
✦ 10:9–14 · Gabriel, the "bastards", and Michael
10:9–10: Gabriel is sent "against the bastards (mamzerin) and the reprobates, and against the children of fornication." His method is to set the giants against each other so they kill one another. Their fathers asked that they live 500 years; the request is refused. This is where the Qumran phrase "spirits of the bastards" (4Q510) comes from.
10:11–14: Michael binds Shemihazah and his band "for seventy generations in the valleys of the earth" until judgment, after which they are thrown into the abyss of fire.
✦ 10:15 · "Destroy all the spirits"
"And destroy all the spirits of the reprobate and the children of the Watchers, because they have wronged mankind."
1 Enoch 10:15
Notice the tension. Chapter 10 orders the spirits destroyed, but chapters 15–16 say they live on until judgment. Scholars (Nickelsburg, Stuckenbruck) think the book was built up in layers. The later layer explains why evil continues after the flood: the bodies were destroyed, but the spirits weren't.
✦ 15:1–12 · The core passage: God's refusal
The context matters. The Watchers have asked Enoch to plead for them (chapters 12–14). Chapter 15 is God's answer, and it's a refusal.
"You should intercede for men, and not men for you."
1 Enoch 15:2
15:6–7: heavenly beings were given no wives because they don't die. Taking wives was the crime.
"And now, the giants, who are produced from the spirits and flesh, shall be called evil spirits upon the earth, and on the earth shall be their dwelling. Evil spirits have proceeded from their bodies; because they are born from men, and from the holy Watchers is their beginning… As for the spirits of heaven, in heaven shall be their dwelling, but as for the spirits of the earth which were born upon the earth, on the earth shall be their dwelling. And the spirits of the giants afflict, oppress, destroy, attack, do battle, and work destruction on the earth… they take no food, but nevertheless hunger and thirst… And these spirits shall rise up against the children of men and against the women, because they have proceeded from them."
1 Enoch 15:8–12
✦ 16:1 · The reprieve until judgment
"From the days of the slaughter and destruction and death of the giants… the spirits, having gone forth, shall destroy without incurring judgement — thus shall they destroy until the day of the consummation, the great judgement."
1 Enoch 16:1
This is the key verse. The spirits operate without being judged until the end. The book doesn't tell people to expel them.
✦ 106:13–17 · The birth of Noah
Noah is born glowing white, and his eyes light up the house. His father Lamech fears the child is a Watcher's son. His grandfather Methuselah goes to Enoch, who explains:
"And they shall produce on the earth giants not according to the spirit, but according to the flesh, and there shall be a great punishment on the earth, and the earth shall be cleansed from all impurity."
1 Enoch 106:17
Enoch reassures them that the child is truly Lamech's and will survive the flood. The Genesis Apocryphon (columns 2–5) tells the same scene, with Lamech questioning his wife Bitenosh.
⚔️ So how does Enoch deal with them?
📣
1. Crying out to heaven
Humanity's cry rises, the four archangels take it to God, and God sends the angels. People don't act themselves; they appeal, and heaven acts.
7:6; 8:4; 9:1–11
⛓️
2. Angels binding the Watchers
Raphael binds Azazel, Michael binds Shemihazah. Binding is used on the fathers, not on the roaming spirits.
10:4–6; 10:11–14
⚔️
3. Setting the giants against each other
Gabriel's tactic: evil destroys itself.
10:9–10
⚖️
4. Final judgment
Only the great judgment ends the spirits.
16:1; 10:13; 19:1; 54:4–6; 55:4
👁️
5. Knowing their origin
Enoch's one real "weapon" is knowledge: what they are, where they came from, where they belong. 11Q11 later turns it into a spoken formula: "Who are you… seed of man and of the holy ones?"
15:8–10 → 11Q11 col. V
🧱 What was built on Enoch
🙏
Jubilees 10
Noah's prayer gets nine-tenths of the spirits bound, and an angel teaches remedies. It reverses Enoch's condemnation of root-lore: healing plants now come from good angels.
🎶
Qumran
Praise said out loud (4Q510–511), and naming the spirit's origin to its face (11Q11).
🌫️
Tobit
Smoke and Raphael.
Enoch supplies the explanation. Its successors supplied the methods.
c. 600 BCE → today
📜 How the knowledge travelled
Tap any point to open its full entry: what it is, date, where the manuscripts are, key passages, why it matters, and the caveats.
Book · chapter · verse
📚 Every text that carries the knowledge
Filter by kind. Direct = says outright that the spirits come from the giants. Echo = assumes the worldview without naming it.
Gospel of Matthew · King James Version
✝️ Matthew: the echoes
Matthew never names the Watchers or giants. He lives inside the worldview without explaining it. Tap a card to turn it over and see the Enoch parallel. The gold bar shows how strong the echo is.
Words that were spoken
🏠 Keeping the three houses
The traditions treat three things as "houses" a spirit tries to enter: the home, the body, and the soul. Scripture is quoted from the King James Version; the Qumran texts are close paraphrases of scholarly translations.
The Shema, written for the doorpost
"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart… And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates."Deuteronomy 6:4–6, 9 · also 11:13–21
This is the text inside the Qumran mezuzot (4Q149–155): tiny rolled parchments tied with thread, fixed to the right side of the doorframe.
Psalm 91, the night psalm
"He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty… Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness… There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways."Psalm 91:1, 5–6, 10–11
At Qumran it is copied in 11Q11 next to the exorcism songs. The rabbis later called it the "song against afflictions" (Jerusalem Talmud, Shabbat 6:2; Babylonian Talmud, Shevuot 15b).
The Instructor's proclamation, spoken at night
Paraphrase: The Instructor declares the splendour and majesty of God, to frighten and terrify all the spirits of the destroying angels, the spirits of the bastards, demons, Lilith, howlers and yelpers.4Q510 frag. 1, lines 4–6 · Songs of the Sage (cf. 4Q511 frag. 35)
The method is praise said out loud. The spirits are frightened off by God's glory, not argued with.
Sealing the house (incantation bowls)
Bowls from 5th–7th-century Mesopotamia name the household (husband, wife, children, house), then name the spirits to be kept out (Lilith among them), invoke angels such as Raphael, and declare the house "sealed and countersealed". They were buried upside down under the threshold and the corners of rooms.
The confrontation: "Who are you?"
Paraphrase: In the name of the LORD… Who are you, offspring of man and seed of the holy ones? Your face is a face of delusion, your horns are horns of illusion. You are darkness, not light. Raphael will send you down to the deepest pit.11Q11 column V (partly reconstructed)
Said when the spirit comes at night. It works by naming its origin to its face: born of man and Watcher, dead, with no claim on this body.
The Priestly Blessing, worn on the body
"The LORD bless thee, and keep thee: The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace."Numbers 6:24–26
The oldest surviving biblical text: two tiny silver scrolls from Ketef Hinnom, Jerusalem, about 600 BCE, worn round the neck as protective amulets.
Tobias and Sarah's wedding-night prayer
Before Asmodeus can strike, the couple rise and pray together: blessing God, remembering the creation of Adam and Eve, and asking for mercy and to grow old together. Smoke from the fish's heart and liver drives the spirit away to Egypt, where Raphael binds it.
Tobit 6:7–8, 6:16–17, 8:2–3, 8:5–8Noah's prayer over his grandchildren
Paraphrase: Let your mercy be lifted over the children of my children. Do not let the evil spirits rule over them. Shut them up and hold them in the place of judgment. For you know how your Watchers, the fathers of these spirits, acted in my days.Jubilees 10:3–6
Do not leave the house empty
"When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself…"Matthew 12:43–45
Casting out is not enough. The house must be filled.
Answer with scripture
"Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve."Matthew 4:10
The Lord's Prayer
"Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."Matthew 6:9–13
The Greek of the last line can equally mean "from the evil one".
Prayer and fasting
"Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting."Matthew 17:21
Missing from the oldest manuscripts; probably added later.
Ten ways the ancients kept them out
🛡️ The methods
🚪
Mark the threshold
Mezuzah on the right doorpost carrying the Shema.
Deut 6:9; 4Q149–155
🗣️
Speak the splendour
Praise God aloud, especially at night, to terrify the spirits.
4Q510–511
❓
Name its origin
Ask "Who are you?" and tell it what it is: born of man and Watcher, with no claim here.
11Q11 col. V
👼
Call on Raphael
The angel who binds Azazel and Asmodeus.
1 Enoch 10:4; Tobit 8:3; 11Q11
🌫️
Smoke
Heart and liver of a fish on incense embers.
Tobit 6:16–17; 8:2–3
🌿
Remedies
Healing plants taught to Noah and written in a book.
Jubilees 10:10–14
📿
Wear the blessing
Priestly Blessing on silver amulets.
Num 6:24–26; Ketef Hinnom
🥣
Bury a bowl
Spiral Aramaic text, upside down under threshold and bed.
Nippur bowls, 5th–7th c. CE
🙌
Prayer and hands
Prayer with laying on of hands.
1QapGen col. 20; Gospels
🏠
Fill the house
After expulsion, do not leave it empty.
Matthew 12:43–45
🥣 The incantation bowls
Thousands found at Nippur (Iraq) from the 1880s onwards, dated 5th–7th century CE. Aramaic ink in a spiral from the rim to the centre. Buried upside down beneath thresholds, room corners and sleeping places, like a lid trapping whatever comes up.
The spinning text here is illustrative, built from formulas typical of the bowls ("sealed and countersealed", angel names, Lilith). Major publication: Shaked, Ford & Bhayro, Aramaic Bowl Spells, Schøyen Collection, vol. 1 (2013).
Comparative religion
🌍 The same knowledge, the same understanding of danger, elsewhere in the world
Across many cultures the same picture appears: the unplaced dead who still hunger for bodily life, drawn back to the home, defended against at the threshold with sacred words, names, smoke or noise. Gold bars show how close each one is to the Enoch picture. Tap a card for the words spoken and the details.
🗣️ Words of banishment around the world
What each tradition says to send the hungry dead away, or to satisfy them so they leave. Original language first, then English. Ancient texts are in older public-domain translations or freshly translated.
✦ 🏺 Mesopotamia: the eṭemmu and the sages
🗣️ zi an-na he-pa₃, zi ki-a he-pa₃ (Sumerian)
nīš šamê lū tamâta, nīš erṣeti lū tamâta (Akkadian)
"By heaven be you adjured! By earth be you adjured!"
Closing formula of the Utukkū Lemnūtu ("Evil Spirits") incantations
Spoken by the exorcist (āšipu) over the sick person and the house. The ghost is bound by oath to heaven and earth so it cannot return.
✦ 🔥 Zoroastrian Persia: daevas and the corpse demon
🗣️ Yathā ahū vairyō athā ratuš ašāt̰čīt̰ hačā… (Avestan)
The Ahuna Vairya. Then: "Perish, O Daeva-made Druj! Rush away, O Druj! Perish away to the regions of the north, never more to give unto death the living world of righteousness!"
Yasna 27.13; Vendidad 8 and 19 (J. Darmesteter's 1880 translation)
The Ahuna Vairya is recited, often four times. The second formula is said over a polluted place or body to drive the corpse demon out.
✦ 🏛️ Greece: daimones and the restless dead
🗣️ Θύραζε, Κῆρες, οὐκέτ᾽ Ἀνθεστήρια (Greek)
"Out of the door, spirits! It is Anthesteria no more!"
Said at the end of the Athenian Anthesteria festival (preserved by later lexicographers, e.g. Photius)
For three days the dead were allowed back into the city and homes. On the last evening the household spoke these words to send them out of the door.
✦ 🫘 Rome: the Lemuria, a household exorcism
🗣️ Haec ego mitto; his redimo meque meosque fabis.
Manes exite paterni! (Latin)
"These I give; with these beans I redeem me and mine." … "Ghosts of my fathers, go out!"
Ovid, Fasti 5.438 and 5.443
At midnight, barefoot, after washing the hands: the first line nine times while throwing black beans over the shoulder without looking back; then bronze is clashed and the second line said nine times.
✦ ☸️ Buddhism: the hungry ghosts (petas)
🗣️ Idaṃ vo ñātīnaṃ hotu, sukhitā hontu ñātayo. (Pali)
"Let this be for our relatives; may our relatives be happy."
Tirokuḍḍa Sutta (Khuddakapāṭha 7)
Not a banishment: the hungry dead are released by feeding them merit. See the Buddhist section for the full set.
✦ 🪔 Sri Lanka: yakku and the tovil
🗣️ Yānīdha bhūtāni samāgatāni… sabbe va bhūtā sumanā bhavantu.
Etena saccena suvatthi hotu. (Pali)
"Whatever beings are gathered here… may all beings be happy." Refrain: "By this truth, may there be well-being."
Ratana Sutta (Sutta Nipāta 2.1)
Chanted at pirit ceremonies in Sri Lankan homes, with the thread held by all present. See the Buddhist section.
✦ 🏮 China: gui and the door gods
🗣️ 急急如律令 · jí jí rú lǜ lìng (Chinese)
"Quickly, quickly, as the law commands!"
Standard closing line of Daoist exorcism spells and paper talismans (fu)
Written at the foot of a talisman pasted over the door, or spoken to end a command to a ghost. Borrowed from the wording of Han-dynasty government orders: the ghost is given an official order to leave.
✦ 🕉️ Hinduism: pretas and bhūtas
🗣️ Bhūta pisāca nikaṭa nahiṃ āvai, Mahābīra jaba nāma sunāvai. (Awadhi)
"Ghosts and demons do not come near when the name of Mahāvīr is spoken."
Hanumān Chālīsā, verse 24 (Tulsidas, 16th c.)
The whole Chalisa is recited, often at night or on Tuesdays and Saturdays. The principle is the same as Qumran: speak the protecting name aloud.
✦ ☪️ Islam: jinn, and Hārūt and Mārūt
🗣️ Bismillāh walajnā, wa bismillāh kharajnā, wa ʿalā Allāhi rabbinā tawakkalnā.
Qul aʿūdhu bi-rabbi l-falaq… Qul aʿūdhu bi-rabbi n-nās… (Arabic)
"In the name of God we enter, in the name of God we leave, and in God our Lord we trust." Then: "Say: I seek refuge in the Lord of the daybreak…" and "Say: I seek refuge in the Lord of mankind…"
Abu Dawud 5096 (entering the home); Qur'an 113 and 114; with the Throne Verse, 2:255
Said on crossing the threshold and before eating. Suras 113–114 are recited three times at night, blowing into the cupped hands and wiping them over the body.
✦ 🥁 Ethiopia: the zar spirits
🗣️ (no fixed formula)
The zar spirit is not banished but answered: each spirit has its own songs and drum rhythms, and the ceremony asks what it wants.
Zar ceremonies in Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt
The words are a negotiation, ending in an agreement between the spirit and the person it rides.
✦ 🛋️ Psychoanalysis: Freud on demons
🗣️ (no formula)
In Freud's terms the "ghost" is laid to rest by mourning: saying out loud what was felt towards the dead, including the anger.
Freud, Totem and Taboo ch. 2; "Mourning and Melancholia" (1917)
The talking cure as a secular version of naming the spirit to its face.
🔁 What keeps recurring
👻
The unplaced dead
Spirits with no body, no rest and no proper place
🍞
Hunger
They want food, warmth and shelter they no longer have
🏠
Return home
They come back to the house and the family
🚪
The threshold
Defence is placed at the door
🗣️
Sacred words
Names, prayers and verses spoken aloud, often at night
🌫️
Smoke, noise, light
Incense, bronze, firecrackers, drums, lamps
🍚
Feed or refuse
Some cultures feed the dead so they leave; others refuse them
Theravāda · Sri Lankan · Mahāyāna
☸️ Buddhist words for the hungry dead
Buddhism mostly does not banish the hungry ghosts (petas). It feeds them with merit, calms them with loving-kindness, and protects the living with words of truth. Pali in gold, English below. Press "Chant along" to step through the lines.
How these are used together in a Sri Lankan home (simplified):
1. Take refuge (Buddhaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi…) and recollect the Buddha (Iti pi so). 2. Chant the pirit (Ratana, Maṅgala, Karaṇīya Mettā, Āṭānāṭiya) while all present hold the pirit nūl thread, which is then tied on the wrist. 3. Give a meal (dāna) to monks, often on the 7th day, 3rd month and yearly after a death (mataka dānaya). 4. Pour water from a jug into a cup until it overflows while saying the Tirokuḍḍa verses, so the merit flows to the dead. 5. Close by inviting the devas to share the merit.
Door → night → body → soul
🕯️ An evening practice
One sequence that follows the order the biblical texts suggest. Step through it.
The YouTube transcript that started this
🔍 What held up, what didn't
✅ Accurate
- 1 Enoch 15:8–12: spirits leave the giants' bodies, stay on earth, hunger and thirst.
- Three witnesses: Ge'ez, Greek (Akhmim codex, Cairo), Aramaic (4Q201–212).
- Milik (1976), Nickelsburg (2001), Stuckenbruck: real, correctly described.
- Jubilees 10: Mastema, nine-tenths bound, remedies to Noah.
- 4Q510/511 (Baillet 1982); 11Q11 exorcisms; Tobit's fish.
- Nippur bowls; Schøyen collection; Shaked, Ford & Bhayro (2013).
- Jude quotes Enoch; Bruce brought it to Europe in 1773; Ethiopia keeps it as scripture.
⚠️ Wrong or stretched
- "Removed from your Bible" at Laodicea: Enoch was never in the Western canon.
- "4Q2011–2012" should be 4Q201–212.
- R.H. Charles's translation: 1893, revised 1912, not 1906.
- Mezuzot as Enochic anti-spirit devices: they carry Deuteronomy, commanded by Deut 6:9.
- Bowls as "proof" of Qumran continuity: they belong to a broad shared magical culture.
- Church suppressed Enoch to keep power from households: no evidence.
- Enoch 15 as "the" origin of all demonology: it is one major source among several.
❌ Almost certainly invented
- Milik's folder labelled "janua" (doorway).
- The 2018 doctoral student, the delayed infrared request, the silence.
- "Never read in strong enough light": the Leon Levy Digital Library already holds multispectral images.
- "Precision that should not be possible": rhetoric, not evidence.
📖 Further reading
- Loren T. Stuckenbruck, The Myth of Rebellious Angels (2014)
- George W.E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, Hermeneia commentary (2001)
- Annette Yoshiko Reed, Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity (2005)
- Archie T. Wright, The Origin of Evil Spirits (2005)
- Philip S. Alexander, "The Demonology of the Dead Sea Scrolls", in Flint & VanderKam (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls After Fifty Years, vol. 2 (1999)
- J.T. Milik, The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumrân Cave 4 (1976)
- Maurice Baillet, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert VII (1982): 4Q510–511
- Shaked, Ford & Bhayro, Aramaic Bowl Spells: Jewish Babylonian Aramaic Bowls, vol. 1 (2013)
- Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library: deadseascrolls.org.il
- Helge S. Kvanvig, Primeval History: Babylonian, Biblical, and Enochic (2011)
- JoAnn Scurlock, Magico-Medical Means of Treating Ghost-Induced Illnesses in Ancient Mesopotamia (2006)
- Sarah Iles Johnston, Restless Dead (1999)
- Bruce Kapferer, A Celebration of Demons (1983)
- Gananath Obeyesekere, Medusa's Hair (1981)
- Lily de Silva, Paritta: The Buddhist Ceremony for Peace and Prosperity in Sri Lanka (1981)
- Stephen F. Teiser, The Ghost Festival in Medieval China (1988)
- Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo (1913), chapter 2; "Mourning and Melancholia" (1917)