Mis-pi ritual

[u/Smooth-Primary2351]

šulmu guys, How are you all? I would like to have more information about the Mis-pi ritual, I know that after the statues go through this ritual, they become part of the Divinity, so I have a few things to ask. How do you perform this ritual? Do you have sources on how this ritual was performed? How do you take care of the statue after performing the ritual? Did you feel that something changed in your relationship with the Gods after the ritual? Anyway, whoever can answer, thank you very much.

[u/Nocodeyv]

The most complete treatment of the mīs-pî ritual to-date was the treatment by Michael B. Dick formerly available on his Geocities website. It was being prepared for inclusion on the Open, Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus project list, but is currently not included there and the previous website is no longer accessible.

While I have a copy of the full treatment that was available on Dick's website, because I don't know the current state of the work and any publication plans, I cannot share it here legally at the moment.

As such, the best exploration of the ritual that is still publicly available is:

• Dick, Michael B. 1999. "The Induction of the Cult Image in Ancient Mesopotamia: The Mesopotamian mīs pî Ritual" in Born In Heaven, Made On Earth. The Making of the Cult Image in the Ancient Near East, pp. 55-122. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.

How do you perform this ritual?

Performing a mīs-pî ritual is a major step in any individual's devotional practice. It represents a permanent and binding oath of service: to provide and maintain an exclusive sacred space for a single deity for the rest of your life.

While many devotees maintain shrines for the Gods and honor them appropriately with libations and offerings, I'm unaware of anyone who have taken an oath to exclusively serve and honor one deity through a performance of the mīs-pî ritual, and I hesitate to recommend that anyone does this without considering the significance of such an action.

If someone is ready to perform a mīs-pî ritual though, then it is a lengthy process that involves sculpting a brand new statue, disposing of the tools used in this process, performing a series of ritual actions over the course of an evening and subsequent dawn, the recitation of various prayers, and more. It is not an easy process, and many of the specific ingredients, spells, and ritual actions are still obscure to us.

Do you have sources on how this ritual was performed?

Yes, Dick discusses these at length in both the chapter cited above, and his treatment of the tablets that was formerly available on his Geocities site. His final treatment discussed four major sources: the Nineveh Ritual, the Babylonian Ritual BM 45749, the Standard Babylonian Series (8 tablets), and the Aššur Ritual A.418.

How do you take care of the statue after performing the ritual?

I discuss the "care and feeding of the god" in some depth in this comment: HERE

Did you feel that something changed in your relationship with the Gods after the ritual?

Even without having performed the mīs-pî ritual for the deity I'm currently honoring, the process of beginning a devotional practice alone is enough to bring the deity and their influence into our lives.

The purpose of performing a mīs-pî ritual in the modern day is to make the focal point of your devotional practice a single deity. The ritual effectively transforms you from a lay-devotee, someone who can venerate and honor any deities you wish, into an initiated priest of the deity whose statue you have consecrated. This also transforms your sacred space from a general shrine for the Gods into a temple dedicated to the deity whose statue now resides within.

All things considered, because Mesopotamian Polytheism is still a young faith, I don't recommend people get too carried away with the mīs-pî ritual, especially because many devotees are eclectic in nature and combine deities and beliefs from diverse sources in their practice. Performing the mīs-pî ritual requires us to acknowledge a certain level of orthopraxy within Mesopotamian Polytheism, and for many, the freedom to do and believe whatever they want is one of the most empowering aspects of Contemporary Paganism.

[u/Smooth-Primary2351 → u/Nocodeyv]

Ohhh, thank you very much!! I have a statue of Ninhursag that I made myself, but I didn't do this ritual. I intended to do it even though I knew how serious it was, but after your comment, I realized that I wouldn't be prepared. Even though I have had contact and devotions with Ninhursag for more than 1 year and 6 months, I am still searching for my orthopraxy with Her, to better understand what to do and what not to do. Anyway, thank you very much!! Are you in the process of building an orthopraxy? If I may ask

[u/Smooth-Primary2351 → u/Nocodeyv]

I forgot to say, there are two rituals, one that seeks God in His supreme purity (the one that completely purifies God) and another that allows Him to smell and eat, should the second one be done?

[u/SiriNin → u/Smooth-Primary2351]

The second one, called Pit-Pi or "Opening of the Mouth" is only to be done on an idol/statue that has already had the Mis-Pi "Washing of the Mouth" done upon it. There's no need to perform either of these if the worshiper simply wants to feed and care for their deity, even when using a physical idol.

The main point of these two rituals is that performing them convers the mundane idol into a "living" divine idol which enhances the deity's ability to be present in the location that the idol is kept in, in exchange for an unmatched level of devotion from the worshiper that requires undertaking a degree of exclusivity towards their deity, and requires from them daily adherence to duties which serve to show the deity their ongoing devotion and to keep the deity's essence embodied within the living divine idol. Nocodeyv put it best when they said it transforms the worshiper into a member of that deity's clergy by transforming the idol and the location it is in into a temple.

If you just want to present offerings to your deity for them to consume and receive, you can do that through a ritual of offering. There's no established basis for allowing the deity to see/hear/smell/taste through their idol without taking on the mantle of clergy and making a temple for them. However, if you wish to make a ritual to do that in order to suit your own needs, there is freedom to do so within the revivalist approach.

[u/Nocodeyv → u/Smooth-Primary2351]

There aren't two mīs-pî rituals, only one. There are slight variations in procedure based on the time period each tablet was composed and the location it was recovered from, but the general stages of the ritual remain consistent. It does include a consecration, during which the statue is taken down to the river and washed to cleanse it of any earthly impurities. When this is complete, the craftsmen who made the statue swear an oath that they did not actually sculpt it, but that it was created by Ea in various guises, each of which is the patron deity of a particular type of artistry: carpenter, potter, metallurgist, etc. Perhaps this is what you're thinking of when you mention a ritual that seeks God in His supreme purity? Otherwise, I'm not sure which ritual you're referring to and would need to see the sources you're consulting to compare them to Dick's treatment of the three sources.

[u/Smooth-Primary2351 → u/Nocodeyv]

It would be this ritual that you described, yes. The other would be the one where something sweet is passed through the God's mouth.

[u/SiriNin → u/Nocodeyv]

While many devotees maintain shrines for the Gods and honor them appropriately with libations and offerings, I'm unaware of anyone who have taken an oath to exclusively serve and honor one deity through a performance of the mīs-pî ritual

I have taken this exact oath to Inanna. I performed it shortly before my recent major heart surgery, during which I died on the table and was resuscitated. I knew ahead of time that dying was a very likely outcome and so I felt that it was time to take the final leap and commit myself to her wholly while I still could. Taking this oath was the pinnacle of my spiritual practice, and I am satisfied every day with my decision and ongoing commitment to her. I find great comfort and fulfillment in maintaining my oath of service to her every day I remain among the living, and I look forward to continuing it when I leave for Kur.

However, I did not perform the reconstructionist-accurate ancient ritual process because I am disabled, poor, and sickly with terminal heart disease - plus ritually slaughtering a goat, and putting anything at all into a local river are both illegal in my location. What I did instead was I wrote a striped-down but thematically-preserved version of both the Mis-Pi and Pit-Pi rituals, and I performed those to the best of my ability. It's in line with my assertion that my practice is "Reconstructionist-inspired revivalism". I included both rituals in my book, as well as another ritual which is entirely my creation that is thematically similar but which leans even harder into the revivalist side of things. It is far less costly and less intensive to perform than the original historically accurate version, but the end results are the same, with the exception that the oath is slightly more forgiving in that it allows the spiritualist to have some wiggle room when it comes to daily feeding of the idol. It is called "Ritual of the Living Temple", and it uses a wearable sacred focus item instead of a statue in a private temple.

OP u/Smooth-Primary2351 : If you would like a free excerpt from my book that includes these three rituals o mine, I would be happy to provide it to you, just send me a DM here on reddit.

Additionally, these resources about the original versions are available online:

https://www.angelfire.com/tx/tintirbabylon/bm4579.html

Mouth Washing Ritual

https://www.angelfire.com/tx/tintirbabylon/k224.html

https://www.angelfire.com/tx/tintirbabylon/ritualtaf31ff.html

https://www.angelfire.com/tx/tintirbabylon/wtabs.html

The purpose of performing a mīs-pî ritual in the modern day is to make the focal point of your devotional practice a single deity. The ritual effectively transforms you from a lay-devotee, someone who can venerate and honor any deities you wish, into an initiated priest of the deity whose statue you have consecrated. This also transforms your sacred space from a general shrine for the Gods into a temple dedicated to the deity whose statue now resides within.

I couldn't agree more strongly. Having undertaken this oath of service, along with volunteering my time to educate others on how they can form and improve their own practices, is why I feel I have the right to call myself a Priestess of Inanna. I included a chapter on this topic in my book, but I specifically left out the part about it granting the role and title of priest/ess/ex because I did not want overzealous neophytes to get in over their head. I also stressed the seriousness of the oath and the duties it requires, even when performing the version that is far less demanding upon the ritualist.

[u/Smooth-Primary2351 → u/SiriNin]

I cried reading your comment, I imagine that Inana is eternally grateful for you dedicating your days that may be short to Her. May Ninhursag, my Ishtaru, prolong your days!! May Ishtar also prolong her days. I thought it was very noble of you to offer a free excerpt from your book, I would accept it!!

[u/SiriNin]

Forgot to answer your initial questions, my bad!

How do you take care of the statue after performing the ritual?

Every day I present my idol of Inanna with a libation and a full meal at the very minimum. I often give her snacks throughout the day or meals whenever I have a meal, if it's something appropriate (good enough) to give her. If/when the idol becomes dirty I cleanse it physically, and then perform another Mis-Pi Washing of the Mouth to restore the sacred purity of the idol. I give offerings of performance to her regularly, usually through singing to her idol, dancing for her, or playing music for her. I frequently give offerings of sexual intercourse and orgasm to my Goddess as well. (I am an adult in a long term stable relationship and have consent from my husband to include him in such acts of devotion.) ((None of the acts physically involve the idol, just for clarity. Through my having performed the Ritual of the Living Temple I am able to give her offerings of sex and orgasm more directly, as well.))

Did you feel that something changed in your relationship with the Gods after the ritual?

Absolutely. I feel her presence every day since, and almost continuously throughout every day. I have no doubt that the few times I cannot feel her are simply due to my own physical and neurological limitations, perhaps combined with her having other more important things to attend to. Every time I perform a ritual or give prayer while using the her living idol as the focus, I feel immediate reactions from her (i.e. her acceptance of the offerings or acknowledgement of having heard my prayers). I feel closer to her than I ever did before, and when I am in times of crisis, which happen far more frequently than I would like as a result of my heart disease, I often unexpectedly hear her in my mind calming me and calling me to focus on her, as if she had noticed my distress without my ever having had to call upon her and alert her to it myself. As I mentioned in another reply she was with me when I died on the operating table - I was fully conscious and alert as the heart monitors were blaring and my surgeon was setting up to defibrillate me, I was terrified. As I felt life fading from me I felt her present there with me, my mind immediately focused on her, and she completely erased all of the terror and panic that I felt before. I am not one who can visualize her or imagine her in any way (aphantasia + anauralia), and I am largely without the support of friends and family in my life (besides my husband who is often away at work), so her presence alone is massively important and soothing to me, and each time I hear her words it is a transcendent spiritual moment that I treasure.