Abstract
The purpose of the present essay is to advance the understanding of the nature of Maqlû reached in my earlier studies and to set out several hypotheses that suggest—and allow us to develop—a deeper, more comprehensive, and satisfying understanding of the ceremony. I hope, thereby, to place the Maqlû series into its contemporary social and intellectual setting.
The Maqlû text represents a ceremony that was directed against witches and was performed at night near the end of the month Abu, at a time when spirits were thought to move back and forth between the netherworld and this world.¹