Abstract
Magic treats illness and other such crises; these personal crises may play out on the physical, psychological, psychosomatic, or social plane. Magical acts may be undertaken either by an individual on his own behalf or by an exorcist (āšipu). The exorcist tries to determine the cause of distress and finds this cause in either personalistic or mechanistic powers within the supernatural universe. The universe in which these powers are found may be structured hierarchically or may be made up of organic wholes.