This is among the weirdest & scariest stuff I've read. A 3500-years-old exorcism ritual from Babylonia (from W Faber’s essay, How to Marry a Disease: Epidemics, Contagion, and a Magic Ritual against the 'Hand of the Ghost’): The ritual in question aims at curing a man who was >

>seized by a ghost. It uses the medium of a female doll and techniques best described as 'contact magic.' The first part of the ritual describes making a doll from reed, wood, and different kinds of fabrics, while the second part contains elaborate instructions for transferring >

>the ghost-induced illness from the man to this doll by marrying her off to the ghost, & then expelling the newlyweds from the patient's house. The text continues: 'Three days she keeps lying in bed with him, while his wife stays away. For three days, he treats her like a wife. >

> When he eats bread, he offers her the bread he is eating, saying to her: 'Eat this, you are in my place!' The food he is chewing on he offers to her, saying to her: "I give it to you!" When he drinks beer, he offers her the beer he has in his mouth, saying: "Drink!" On the >

> third day he lifts up "Sun water" (and?) [text breaks]. He gives her the bed frame & the chair." After that, the exorcist takes over. He provides the doll with travel provisions & something that is no longer preserved, and then says to her: 'You have now been given provisions >

> and a dowry, you are .... You have been made the substitute and replacement of NN (the man). The evil demon who is with NN is now your husband, you are given to him. From the body of NN you shall take him and go away.' After a rather broken passage which seems to be concerned >

> with the proper placement of the doll and the provisions, and also mentions the bed again, an opening or door—possibly the one of the bedroom—is magically sealed with clay, cress seed and some magic drawings, before the ghost himself is addressed in the following words: >

> "Anything evil, you must not walk behind me! "Anything Evil, you must not be on my heels! You are ...., you have been given provisions, you have been caused to seize. You are her husband, she is your wife. You shall take her and go away. From the body of NN, you are forced >

> to leave, you are expelled, eradicated, and driven away.' The final lines are destroyed beyond recovery. Only the mention of a torch and the final promise of recovery for the patient have survived. Apparently, it was commonly believed in Babylon that a demon selects a person >

> as his or her bride or groom, and exorcisms were used to trick them into divorcing humans and somehow marrying inanimate objects. For those interested, there is a multivolume "Corpus of Mesopotamian Anti-Witchcraft Rituals" available online. @aaolomi